Do discount campaigns on prescription-only medicines (POMs) run by mail order pharmacies lure patients into consuming medicinal products? The European Court of Justice (CJEU) in the case of Apothekerkammer Nordrhein (C-517/23) has held that they do not.
Following on from the AG Opinion of Advocate General Szpunar, which we provided an update on earlier in the year, this case is the latest in a stream of cases on advertising practices involving DocMorris, a Dutch mail-order pharmacy that supplies medicines to end customers in Germany. The CJEU concluded that the discount campaigns regarding unspecified POMs do not fall within the definition of “advertising of medicinal products” (Article 86(1) Directive 2001/83) as the discount is implemented at the point of purchase of the POM. The decision of which product to prescribe has already been taken by a doctor and all the patient is left to do is choose the dispensing pharmacy. As such, the Court held that the purpose of the discount campaign is not to encourage patients to purchase medicinal products. Rather, it is simply to attract them to a specific pharmacy.
The facts of the case are set out in our previous blog available here.Continue Reading An update from the European Court of Justice on discount campaigns run by mail order pharmacies