After arresting 11 persons involved in illegal sale of MTP kits in the state, the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued notice to Amazon and Flipkart for online sale of pregnancy termination pills and kits on their e-commerce platform. According to Pharmabiz, “The Maharashtra FDA had initiated a special drive to crackdown on the online sale of the drug like Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) kit. In this drive FDA has checked 34 online sites for the availability of MTP kits for sale. During the verification process, an online order for the MTP kit was placed by FDA officials by posing as a customer on the Amazon site twice. Both orders were accepted by “Amazon.in” site without asking for a doctor's prescription, though doctor prescription is mandatory for sale of MTP kit.”

 

“The MTP kit drugs were delivered by Gurunanak Enterprises, Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and Choudhary Pharmaceuticals/ Piramal Ltd. Korapur (Orissa) against the order. Online sale of MTP kits without doctor’s prescription leads to violation of provisions of Drug & Cosmetics Act, 1940”, the FDA stated. Hence FDA has issued notice to Amazon and respective drugs suppliers and further action by FDA is in progress. In one more case, an order was placed on the Flipkart website for MTP kit. Order was accepted at two different incidences without doctor’s prescription and even SMS was received from Flipkart regarding dispatch of drug on both incidences. An offer to sell MTP kit drug, without doctor’s prescription, is a violation of provisions of the act, hence FDA has issued notice to Flipkart and further action is in progress. In recent incidence of online sale of MTP kit by Amazon to one chemist at Pune was revealed, who lodged a complaint with FDA Pune. FDA swung into action and investigated the matter with supplier R K Medicines, Ahmedabad Gujarat. It was found that the supplier didn’t have the purchase bill of said MTP kit. Therefore, an FIR was lodged against Supplier at the Pune Police station. Police are investigating the matter further, FDA further stated.