Legal Alert Covid-19: New Law Facilitates Access to Medicines during Pandemics

September 23, 2020 / By Tomás Muñoz

On September 22th, 2020, Act N° 21.267 was officially published. The purpose of the Act is to facilitate access to medicine by extending the validity of medical prescriptions that were given before or during a pandemic officially decreed by the Chilean Government. In particular, this is achieved by extending the prescription validity, which correspond normally to 6 months since the physician has granted it.

As so, the Act has established the following:

• All authorized establishments must permit access to medicines upon the presentation of a valid prescription´s copy, regardless of its physical or digital support.
• Prescriptions granted 6 month before a pandemic decree by the Government and those prescribed during it, will be considered valid during the pandemic and 6 months after.
• Regarding any other mandatory norms that authorized establishment must abide, they will still be mandatory regardless of an official pandemic decree.
• Misuse of prescriptions will be sanctioned according to the Sanitary Code, the Criminal Code and Lay N° 20.000, that sanctions drug trafficking and consumption, if applicable.
• The Sanitary Code is modified in order to eliminate the mandatory use of an Advanced Electronic Signature to grant a prescription, being replaced with the norms of a decree. Though the Act does not indicate which specific decree, the legislative discussion demonstrates that it was intended to refer to the Pharmacies Regulation, Decree N° 466.

En relación a este tema, revise la alerta enviada el 8 de mayo sobre el Decreto que introduce el comercio electrónico de medicamentos.

In relation with this matter, please review the legal alert: Ministry of Health introduces e-commerce in medicines.

* This report provides general information on certain legal or commercial matters in Chile, and it is not intended to analyze in detail the matters contained in it, nor it is intended to provide a particular legal advice on them. It is suggested to the reader to look for legal assistance before making a decision regarding the matters contained in this report. This report can not be reproduced by any means or in any part, without the prior consent of DLA Piper BAZ | NLD SpA. (c).