EMA Highlights: EMA to publish list of legal online pharmacies

by Gary Finnegan – The European Medicines Agency is drawing up a list of legally-operating online pharmacies as part of an EU-wide crackdown on falsified medicines.
Under new legislation from Brussels, national regulatory authorities will create lists of all legitimate websites licensed to sell medicines and submit their details to the EMA.

These sites will carry a new logo which comes into force at the end of July. The logo will be hyperlinked to a site where patients can check the veracity of the pharmacy before purchasing.

Online pharmacies are unheard of in many EU countries but are popular in some markets where some high street retailers have online branches which compete with online-only medicines stores.

The move is just one element of a major EU directive which aims to stamp out the sale of fake medicines in Europe.

Under the new rules, medicines packs are expected to be fitted with 2D barcodes which will be scanned at the point of sale in retail pharmacies. The barcodes will then be checked against national databases linked to a central EU hub to ensure the pack is authentic and has not been sold before anywhere in Europe.

The system, not expected to be live before 2017, will also be used to alert pharmacists to product recalls.