Is the sale of medicinal products on the Internet regulated by law?
Anyone who sells medicinal products on the Internet is registered with the competent supervisory authority (in Austria: BASG) for public inspection and is subject to monitoring. Quality requirements must be met that are laid down in the Medicinal Products Act (AMG) and the associated ordinances ("Distance Selling Ordinance" for human medicinal products and "Vet-Fernabsatz-VO" for veterinary medicinal products). This ensures that only non-prescription medicines that are authorised in Austria and meet the quality requirements are sold. Furthermore, BASG monitoring protects consumers from counterfeit medicines.

It should be noted that no medicinal products subject to prescription in Austria may be sold and delivered to Austria from another EEA contracting party.

Anyone offering prescription-only medicines on the Internet is liable to prosecution!

The common EU safety logo must be displayed on the website. There are two different EU safety logos for human and veterinary medicinal products.

The national flag visible in the EU security logo indicates the country in which the webshop is registered. The respective national authority is responsible for monitoring.

Clicking on the EU safety logo takes you to the homepage of the authority responsible for registering/supervising the web shop in question. In Austria, this is the Federal Office for Safety in Health Care (BASG). The BASG website lists all registered online pharmacies in Austria that are authorised to sell non-prescription medicines over the Internet (current list of Austrian mail-order pharmacies, current list of Austrian dispensing points for veterinary medicines ). Whenever you buy medicines online, make sure that the online shop you have chosen is registered.

If you are shopping in a webshop of another contracting party of the EEA, check in the following way whether it is a registered shop of the respective country:

1. Click on the logo
2. Check whether you are redirected to the homepage of the competent supervisory authority and whether the shop in question is on the authority's lists.
3. Only make a purchase if the webshop is listed with the monitoring authority and is therefore legal.

In the best case, nothing happens. However, if you treat a serious illness with ineffective (counterfeit) medication, this can have serious consequences. For example, ineffective or underdosed antibiotics can lead to bacterial resistance in the long term. Diseases can also spread without proper treatment. There is also a risk that ineffective and illegal medicines may contain toxic substances and also damage their health.

Not every registered webshop is necessarily already in operation. Some dispensaries have registered a webshop, but this is still under construction.

No. Within Austria, pharmacies may only dispense non-prescription human and veterinary medicinal specialities authorised or registered in Austria by distance selling. Speciality medicinal products are medicinal products manufactured in advance and in the same composition and pre-packaged for consumption (Section 1 (5) of the Medicinal Products Act, AMG, Federal Law Gazette No. 185/1983, as amended).

Extemporaneous medicinal products that are manufactured in a pharmacy on the basis of a medical or dental prescription for specific patients, as well as medicinal products that are intended to be dispensed directly to consumers in the pharmacy in which they were manufactured, may not be sold at a distance.