Recently, the “Regulations on the Implementation of the Drug Administration Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft for Comments on the Revised Draft)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Draft for Comments”) issued by the State Drug Administration has officially ended its month-long public consultation process. Furthermore, on June 17, the State Drug Administration also held a departmental symposium on revising the “Regulations on the Implementation of the Drug Administration Law” to listen to opinions and suggestions from various departments in person and communicate with them. Since May 9, the State Drug Administration has held a series of symposiums to listen extensively to the opinions and suggestions of drug regulatory authorities at all levels, domestic and foreign pharmaceutical manufacturers and management enterprises, pharmaceutical industry associations, and experts and scholars around the “Draft for Solicitation of Comments” to conduct in-depth discussions on key issues in the revision process.
In the “Draft for Solicitation of Comments” this time, the regulatory content relating to the new third-party platform for online drug trading has attracted much attention. In recent years, the market acceptance of the “Internet+Healthcare” model has increased widely under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the push of policies, which has also enabled the pharmaceutical e-commerce industry to enter the fast track of development. According to statistics from Mi Intranet, drug sales in China's online pharmacy market reached 36.8 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 51.49% over the previous year. Furthermore, according to JD Health's financial report, the revenue of its self-operated retail pharmacy business in 2021 was 26.2 billion yuan, an increase of 56.1% over the previous year.
As the drug retail market for third-party platforms becomes larger and larger, the state will also further clarify the relevant management obligations. Article 83, which was added this time, clearly stipulates that third party platforms provide...