Companies that provide drug delivery services for patients who received remote healthcare are expanding their business domain amid the protracted Covid-19 pandemic.
Pharmacists pointed out that these platforms have taken advantage of the Covid-19 and began delivering over-the-counter drugs, which was not included in the measures temporarily allowed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in December 2020.
Pharmacists who sell and send drugs to patients through delivering services are subject to punishment in violation of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act.
However, the companies continue to extend their service areas exploiting the current situation, industry watchers said. Doctornow and Baropill are two platforms that provide delivery services in Korea.
Doctornow is expanding its delivery infrastructure and business by forming strategic alliances with its partnering delivery platform companies despite opposition from the Korean Pharmaceutical Association (KPA). On June 4, the company signed a deal for delivery infrastructure expansion with Barogo, an IT-based delivery platform operator. In addition, it agreed with another startup to deliver the drugs in an hour.
The service delivers medicines within an hour when patients receive remote treatment from a doctor through the company’s application and send the prescription to a partner pharmacy. The company initially offered the service to only some areas of Seoul in early July but expanded it to the entire country, including Seoul, within a month.
The KPA has threatened that it would take legal action and accused some companies.
However, Doctornow said it has not received any complaint and has not violated the law. The company added that it is considering a service that can protect the drugs under extreme weather such as heatwaves and extreme cold.
Baropill discarded the “non-prescribed over-the-counter drug delivery service” provision from its platform.
The company seems to have quit its service as it could not secure a legal basis for delivering drugs faced with the opposing opinions from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the pharmacist society that over-the-counter drug delivery is illegal.
Baropill is a platform that delivers all pharmaceutical products, including prescription drugs and non-medicine products, and provided services similar to Doctornow.
“Drug delivery is a risky thought that goes against the safety and life of the public, and we will file against pharmacies that cooperate with the drug delivery service and take strong action against them even if they are one of our members,” KPA Chairman Kim Dae-up said.
The situation in Korea is quite different from other countries, however.
For example, in the U.S., Amazon Pharmacy began delivering drugs to people in November last year. Amazon Pharmacy explains that it offers to deliver generic or prescription medicines to most U.S. customers with no delivery fee and sends the drugs to prime members in two days.
Boots Pharmacy in the U.K. also started a prescription delivery service in June 2019 and recruited more than 500 additional drivers to deliver to people at high risk.
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare also announced telemedicine emergency measures that allow doctors to treat and give medication guides over the phone in April 2020.
Japan’s health authorities allowed most of the online medical courses except for special hospital wards, such as those prepared for cancer patients.
“We understand that we would lose legal basis when health authorities withdraw the temporarily permitted treatment measures,” Doctornow said. “If the government withdraws from the deregulatory stance, we believe that all platforms related to drug delivery service in Korea will lose their place, which will also make the nation fall behind other countries.”
Doctornow launched a telemedicine association with other companies to institutionalize the opinions of the industry in line with the post-Covid-19 era.