4 September 2020 the Russian Ministry of Justice registered the Order No. 5527 of Roszdravnadzor dd. 29 June 2020, approving criteria for evaluating the information, publication of which may result in a website inclusion in the register of prohibited websites and its blocking. The Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare (Roszdravnadzor) renders such a decision.
A website may be blocked if the published information meets one or several criteria below:
- Counterfeit and poor-quality medicines are offered for sale
- Unregistered medicines are offered for sale
- Medicines not approved bythe Rules on online sales and delivery of medicines are offered for online sale
- Online pharmacy uses domain names and/or page indexes on websites not listed in the online sales authorization
- Medicines limited or prohibited for sale, as well as an online sale, are offered for sale
Roszdravnadzor may block the website if a person offering medicines for sale does not have a pharmaceutical license and, if applicable, authorization for online sales of medicines, or if he or she publishes the information forming among audience a positive image of persons engaged in the unauthorized online sale of medicines (excluding artistic works describing the information justified by their genre).
Roszdravnadzor approval of the abovementioned criteria is a logical continuation of the Rules on online sale and delivery of medicines enacted in May 2020. Such restrictions shall reduce the number of unfair sellers who do not have the authorization to sell medicines. However, a question of whether the criteria will be applied effectively remains open.