Links to pharmacies and offers promoting cut-rate supplies of Xanax, Vicodin, and Viagra are rampant on the Web. Thousands of pages of search results pop up--some for legitimate providers, and others
that are more questionable.
Now, a new report from JupiterResearch has found that between 2 million and 4.1 million adult Internet users in the United States bought such prescription drugs online
from questionable providers. Such providers, according to the report, are foreign pharmacies or rogue providers not directly associated with licensed U.S. pharmacies. The report has found that between
one-half and two-thirds of the 2 million to 4.1 million consumers used valid prescriptions, suggesting that they came from legitimate foreign pharmacies. The rest of the group didn't use valid
prescriptions to obtain the desired drugs.
The "Online Prescription Drug Sales" report, which analyzed consumer attitudes and purchasing behavior in 2003, defines foreign licensed online
pharmacies as sites that fulfill valid prescriptions (obtained as a result of a doctor's visit, including follow-up calls for refills) by brick-and-mortar pharmacies or mail-order venues that are
licensed. The Jupiter report defines rogue online drug shops as sites that enable consumers to buy prescription drugs after completing online questionnaires that typically don't require the submission
of a valid prescription. "Rogue could be any business, domestic or foreign," says Monique Levy, Jupiter's lead analyst-Health. "Usually they're not asking for valid prescriptions."
The Jupiter
report suggests that online drug sales from rogue or foreign pharmacies are unlikely to skyrocket in 2004, as consumers are becoming more wary about such transactions. The study found that 60 percent
of online consumers indicated that they wouldn't purchase prescription drugs despite cut-rate prices and the convenience factor. In addition, the findings show that 35 percent of those polled are more
concerned about drug safety than they are about the legality of purchasing prescription drugs online (20 percent), or that their credit card will be misused (24 percent).
Jupiter began to track
the online pharmacy phenomenon last year. Levy says it's often not clear to consumers whether an online pharmacy is a rogue or not, and that big pharmaceutical companies need to figure out how to
address the problem and slow the growth of such outfits. Spending more on Web marketing is not necessarily the appropriate response to the issue.
"For businesses, this is not such a big number
compared to the buzz around this issue," Levy says, while adding a qualifier: "From the health risk and bottom-line perspectives, this could be a substantial number. For media [planners] this might
mean that relative to other activities, this is a [relatively] small audience [to be concerned about]." She notes that purchasing drugs online--versus researching them and marketing them online--are
very different things.
Jupiter conducted the survey online among regular Internet users who were asked about their online drug purchasing habits. The survey offered a list for respondents to
choose from, including several well-known pharmacy chains (such as CVS), pharmacy benefit programs, mass merchants, and pure-play online venues (such as Drugstore.com). Survey participants were also
offered foreign and rogue categories to choose from.