04 Avr European Court of Justice – april 2024
Reference for a preliminary ruling – Medicinal products for human use – Directive 2001/83/EC – Article 85c – Scope – Distance selling to the general public of medicinal products – Medicinal products for human use not subject to compulsory medical prescription – Persons authorised or entitled to engage in distance selling to the general public of medicinal products – Power of the Member States to impose conditions, justified by the protection of public health, on the retailing, on their territory, of medicinal products sold online – Information society services – Directive 98/34/EC – Directive (EU) 2015/1535 – Service connecting pharmacists and customers for the online sale of medicinal products.
ECJ, 29 February 2024 Case C 606/21, Doctipharma SAS v. Union des Groupements de pharmaciens d’officine (UDGPO), Pictime Coreyre.
Source
Article 1(2) of Directive 98/34/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 June 1998 laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations and of rules on Information Society services, as amended by Directive 98/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 July 1998, and Article 1(1)(b) of Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 2015 laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical regulations and of rules on Information Society services
must be interpreted as meaning that a service provided on a website consisting in connecting pharmacists and customers for the sale, via the websites of pharmacies which have subscribed to that service, of medicinal products not subject to medical prescription falls within the concept of an ‘information society service’ within the meaning of those provisions.
Article 85c of Directive 2001/83/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 November 2001 on the Community code relating to medicinal products for human use, as amended by Directive 2011/62/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2011,
must be interpreted as meaning that Member States may, on the basis of that provision, prohibit the provision of a service consisting in connecting, via a website, pharmacists and customers for the sale, from the websites of pharmacies which have subscribed to that service, of medicinal products not subject to medical prescription, if it transpires, having regard to the characteristics of that service, that the provider of that service is itself selling such medicinal products without being authorised or entitled to do so under the law of the Member State in whose territory it is established.
