Background of Online Pharmaceutical Business
Online business continuously grows across diversified sectors of business every year, and the pharmaceutical sector is not an exception. Based on statistical data, back in 2018, the value of worldwide internet pharmacy market was reaching $49,727.7 million and is expected to grow up to $177,794.9 million by 2026, indicating a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17.3% during the period of 2019-2026.
As of today, the age group of average statistical customer of online pharmacies varies within 35-44 years old, with approximately 26% of customers from the Great Britain having purchased drugs online back in 2019. With persistence of this purchasing pattern tendency getting more famous, the internet pharmaceutical industry is expected to undergo significant growth within the upcoming years, and conquer markets of other countries around the globe.
Pharmaceutical brands make huge investments in R&D, which results in a ten-year patent for newly created medications. Once ten-years period is over, the active ingredients included in those drugs lose its legal protection, which allows other producers to initiate the process of replica products manufacturing. Of course, those newly developed replicase will be available at way lower price, due to reduced cost of R&D and manufacturing, as well as to compete with analogous brands and products.
The major convenience of online pharmacies includes saving of a great amount of time and efforts, because patient now does not need to travel a long distance to the pharmacy without knowing if the specific drug is available or not. Online pharmacies provide the comfort to purchase necessary medicine online and get the packages delivered directly to the customer’s door.
Pre-requisites for Obtaining Drug Prescriptions Online
Nevertheless, even replicas still may require prescription, since those medications are still dealing with serious health conditions, which require a proper examination of particular patient’s situation in order to attain desired results and avoid any unwanted effects. Likewise, it is very important to properly understand the process of obtaining online drug prescription in order to simplify the entire process and save money, time and effort.
The most widely available drugs prescriptions available online include:
- Antibiotics;
- Allergy medications;
- Asthma medications
Our medications:
However, you still can obtain the prescription online other types of drugs as well. The following steps describe the process of obtaining prescription online and pre-requisites involved in it.
Step 1. The pharmacist who works in the online pharmacy will need to create your profile and ask few questions and fill up a consent form (for first-timers) or identifier (for registered patients). A thorough medical check-up is usually required in order to study and understand patient’s current health conditions and prescribe a fit-for-purpose medication. You may also be asked whether you have previously taken the drug that is about to be prescribed to you, and for which health condition/sickness. This information helps the doctor to customize your medication counsel.
Step 2. Staff member from the pharmacy will key-in the prescription inside your profile and verify the following: information from doctor, prescribed medication and its dosage, indications provided by the healthcare specialist, quantity of the script and others. The pharmacy system will then verify any possible interactions or associated issues (i.e. side effects, precautions) through its database.
Step 3. The medication will then be scanned, packaged, equipped with expiry date, verified for prescribed quantity, labelled and passed over to the physician for final check.
Step 4. The healthcare practitioner will conduct a clinical verification of your drug, including drug interactions assessment, possibility of allergies, and review of drugs previously taken to treat similar health condition, validate treatment duration and dosage. Pharmacist is generally responsible for technical verification of the information accuracy being keyed-in pharmacy system, as well as inside the label and contents of the package. In addition, the specialist is the one, who provides counselling documents to the patient for additional information about medication.
Step 5. The prescribed medication will be delivered to the specified location after the payment has been settled and verified. If a patient is requesting for a refill of prescribed medication, the pharmacist may request a separate assessment to verify the current efficiency of the medication, how it is working for the patient, and check presence of side effects, if any.
Sum-up
You don’t require to physically visit the pharmacy or doctor to obtain the prescription and the medication. With benefits of online pharmacies, every patient receives a flexibility to discuss his/her health condition virtually with healthcare specialist, who will then prepare a prescription and provide the suitable medication, which can be further ordered via the online pharmacy and delivered straight to specified address.