1 marzo 2024 – Distance selling of medicinal products without a prescription: the Court clarifies the conditions under which a Member State may prohibit a service connecting pharmacists and customers for the online sale of medicinal products.

Until 2016, Doctipharma operated a website on which it was possible to purchase pharmaceutical products and medicinal products not subject to prescription from pharmacy websites. In practical terms, the Doctipharma website made products available via a pre-registered catalogue. Customers selected the medicinal products and their order was then sent to the pharmacies whose websites were hosted by Doctipharma. Payment of the purchase price was made via a single payment system common to all pharmacies, using a dedicated account. The Union des groupements de pharmaciens d'officine (Union of Pharmacy Groups, ‘UDGPO’) challenged the legality of that website: in its view, the service provided by Doctipharma via its website involved the latter in the ecommerce of medicinal products and was therefore contrary to national legislation prohibiting the sale of medicinal products by persons not qualified as pharmacists. The Court of Appeal, Paris (France) asks the Court of Justice, first, whether Doctipharma's activity is an Information Society service and, secondly, whether EU law allows Member States to prohibit the provision of such a service, which consists in connecting, by means of a website, pharmacists and customers for the sale, via the websites of pharmacies that have subscribed to the service, of medicinal products not subject to prescription.

The Court of Justice ruled that a service provided on a website consisting in connecting pharmacists and customers for the sale, via the websites of pharmacies which have subscribed to that service, of medicinal products not subject to medical prescription falls within the concept of an ‘information society service’ within the meaning of the applicable EU law on Information Society services. within the concept of an ‘information society service’ within the meaning of EU law. The member stated cannot prohibit such service.

The Court of Justice further ruled that the applicable EU law relating to medicinal products for human use must be interpreted as meaning that Member States may prohibit the provision of a service consisting in connecting, via a website, pharmacists and customers for the sale, from the websites of pharmacies which have subscribed to that service, of medicinal products not subject to medical prescription, if it transpires, having regard to the characteristics of that service, that the provider of that service is itself selling such medicinal products without being authorised or entitled to do so under the law of the Member State in whose territory it is established.

For more information, see here.