Authors: Dr. Judit Balogh, Dr. Ákos Kékuti
According to the amendment of the legislation, which was accepted on 30 November 2021., as of 1 January 2022. neither medicine with prescription, nor non-prescription medicine can be delivered via mail order or courier. The modification doesn’t affect the medical aids, the dietary supplements and the cosmetics, they can still be delivered by courier or other mail orders.
The amendment of the legislation took place after a consultation following a statement by the Hungarian Chamber of Pharmacy on 23 September 2021. In the aforementioned statement, the Chamber stated that the delivery of medicines via mail orders is a serious threat to the safety of medicines. In their opinion, the trading of medicinal products, which is under authorisation, via mail orders with subcontractors who don’t have a license or a professional, endangers the safety of the supply of medicines to the public, which makes it necessary to regulate the online trading.
According to the amendment, couriers are not allowed to deliver the ordered medicines, these can be only delivered by pharmacists and specialised assistants.
Considering that as a result of the coronavirus epidemic the online sale of pharmaceuticals has gained considerable significance, the new regulation is a major challenge for the pharmacies and for the online ordering customers too.
In fact, the pharmacies are unlikely to have the capacity to supply each medicine order by professional, and further, costumers are likely to buy larger quantities in person at the pharmacy at the same time, so this may increase the stocking of medicine at homes. In addition to this, the pharmacies need to develop a suitable solution to deal effectively with the increased personal traffic due to the loss of online sales.
If you have any questions in relation to the above or the pharmaceutical legislation, please do not hesitate to contact Germus & Partners Attorneys-At-Law, which has extensive expertise, theoretical and practical experience in the field of pharmaceutical law and is able to provide you with practical and client-oriented solutions.
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