Audit et enjeux financiers et économiques de la vente de médicaments soumis à prescription médicale en Belgique. En route vers une digitalisation plus importante ?

Abstract

In 2009, Belgium has authorised pharmacies to sell parapharmaceutical products and non-prescription drugs online under strict regulation. Since their apparition, online pharmacies, also known as e-pharmacies, have forced pharmacists to evolve and to adapt themselves. Combining this to the increase in online shopping with the growth of digitalisation, the talk about selling prescription drugs online became famous. Therefore, we decided to devote this thesis to studying the financial and economical stakes and the process to put in place if the selling of prescription drug were to be allowed. Through a quantitative analysis directed to the Belgian population, we were able to define the presence of a market for this type of selling. However, some are still against it for several reasons, the two main one being the lack of direct contact with a pharmacist and the lack of advice when delivering drug. This reluctance joins the general professionals’ opinion that we collected through a qualitative analysis. Nevertheless, pharmacies whose main activity is e-pharmacy are waiting to sell prescription drug due to a potential growth of market share and growth of turnover. Despite those divergence of opinion, they all are unanimous about the fact that the online selling of prescription drug will be authorized sooner than later. To achieve our main goal of proposing a process, we combined the findings of our literature review, namely the current processes of selling prescription drug in pharmacies and parapharmaceutical products and non-prescription drugs online, with our empirical studies.