MediaNama’s Take: Currently, India doesn’t have a proper legal framework for the online sale and home delivery of medicines, including over-the-counter drugs and doctor-prescribed medicines. Now, Zepto Pharmacy has joined the growing, unregulated e-pharmacy market.
Despite the lack of a legal framework and guidelines, numerous startups and established businesses continue to enter the e-pharmacy space. This reflects a significant regulatory gap in the health-tech sector, including online sale and delivery of medicines, at-home diagnostics, and the digital processing of users’ health records and biometric data. Moreover, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, does not contain specific provisions regarding the processing of personal health-related data.
More importantly, a major policy gap in the e-pharmacy sector lies in determining its legal jurisdiction. As explained in a whitepaper by the Indian Medical Association, the e-commerce sector falls under the Information Technology Act, 2000, while the sale of medicines is regulated by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare through various drug, cosmetic, and medical acts.
Therefore, the rapidly growing e-pharmacy sector urgently needs a comprehensive policy framework, one that enforces necessary regulations without hampering the growth of e-commerce, while also upholding the professional and ethical standards of online pharmaceutical services.
What’s the News?
Quick-commerce platform Zepto has launched Zepto Pharmacy, offering 10-minute delivery of medicines. In a LinkedIn post, Aadit Palicha, co-founder and CEO of Zepto, said that the new pharmacy service is live in select areas of Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, and Hyderabad.
The company—already known, among other things, for deploying dark patterns in its interface—believes this service can improve the lives of millions of customers across the country. “Our objective is to keep operational standards extremely high and not scale too rapidly given the complexity of this category,” Palicha wrote.
The Current Quick-Pharma Business
With the launch of Zepto Pharmacy, the company has entered the competitive q-commerce market for online medicines, currently dominated by players like Blinkit, Tata 1mg, Apollo, and PharmEasy, the latter of which partnered with Swiggy’s Instamart for quick medicine deliveries.
Additionally, Hyderabad-based Medstown claims to offer 10-minute medicine delivery across over 90 pincodes in Hyderabad. Similarly, Delhi-based Repill and PillUp offer 60-minute delivery services. Repill operates mainly in Delhi and Noida, while PillUp claims to operate across India. Recently, PhonePe’s Pincode also entered the market, offering 24-hour delivery of medicines.
Amazon offers same-day online medicine delivery in 23 cities and even 10-minute delivery in select cities like Delhi and Bengaluru. However, hybrid retail-online players such as Netmeds and MedPlus currently…
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