Affected by the policy, pharmaceutical e-commerce has maintained rapid growth in the market in recent years, and its proportion in the total expenditure of health care in China is also increasing. In the fight against the epidemic of COVID-19, the omni-directional advantages of pharmaceutical e-commerce are highlighted. At the same time, online diagnosis and treatment, pharmaceutical e-commerce and online payment are all strongly supported by policies, and the development of the industry is on the fast track.

Recently, the one-month public consultation of the regulations on the implementation of the Drug Administration Law (draft revised draft) issued by the State Drug Administration on May 9 has officially closed. An old piece of news caused a high degree of public popularity through market speculation, which once jumped to Weibo Corp's hot search.

The core focus of this discussion is the proposed provision in new Article 83 of the draft: third-party platform providers shall not directly participate in online drug sales activities. Specifically, the provider of the third-party platform for drug network trading shall put on record with the drug supervision and administration department of the people's government of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government where it is located, and shall not provide services related to drug network sales without the record. Third-party platform providers shall establish a drug network sales quality management system, set up special agencies, and be equipped with pharmaceutical technical personnel and other relevant professionals to establish and implement drug quality management, distribution management and other systems.

Judging from the actual situation, those that have been listed$Alibaba Health Information Technology (00241.HK) $、$JD Health (06618.HK) $And the pharmacists who are listed in Hong Kong are involved in the "platform + proprietary" business. Thus it can be seen that "platform + self-management" is a common business phenomenon, which is common in various industries. Therefore, this regulation has been misunderstood by the outside world to a certain extent that the current mainstream pharmaceutical e-commerce sales model will usher in a huge adjustment.

Excessive interpretation and divergent views triggered a brief market panic, and the share prices of Alibaba Health Information Technology and JD Health fell on June 22nd. But the performance picked up quickly in the next two trading days, with shares of the two companies up 8.79% and 11.47%, respectively, by the close of trading on June 24.

People in the industry said that the third-party platform in the draft does not sell drugs directly, which means that the platform itself cannot sell drugs as the main body, while at present many platforms sell drugs through self-owned pharmacies, and the two belong to different subjects. The above requirements of the draft only define the boundary between the platform and self-management, and will not have a significant impact on the pharmaceutical e-commerce business.

In essence, the content of the draft is gradually standardized rather than suppressed. Under the current epidemic environment, pharmaceutical e-commerce greatly facilitates the online procurement of grass-roots drugstore terminals and C-terminal consumers to ensure a stable supply of drugs, but also brings online traffic for a large number of pharmaceutical retail enterprises. It not only improves the service efficiency, but also promotes the transformation and upgrading of the pharmaceutical retail format. The adjustment of policies and regulations is not a simple contraction, continue to promote online and offline integration and development, through supervision to create a healthy market environment, to promote the industry to achieve standardized development and healthy competition is the direction and purpose.

At the same time, the "draft for soliciting opinions" has not yet made a more detailed definition of "direct participation". There are also great differences in the industry as to whether the requirement can eventually land, how to land, and whether it will be adjusted. Therefore, with regard to the follow-up policy, the FDA is bound to continue to adjust from the perspective of promoting the benign development of the industry, and the final result still needs to be finalized and interpreted by the authorities.