Anvisa lifts restrictions on iFood, Rappi, and Mercado Livre for medicine sales: what about cannabis?
Anvisa revokes restrictions against digital platforms, but new regulations will still be required, confronting cannabis products with questions about control, advertising, and traceability
The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) has paved the way for a major shift in how medications can reach Brazilian consumers. The Agency revoked preventive measures that targeted platforms such as iFood, Rappi, Mercado Livre, Americanas, and Shopee, which had prevented them from acting in the intermediation, advertising, or delivery of medicines.
The decision, however, does not mean that any medication can already be sold freely on these apps.
Anvisa itself clarified that revoking the resolutions does not constitute automatic authorization for the commercialization of pharmaceutical products by these platforms. The application of the new legislation depends on regulations that have yet to be issued by the Agency.
What really changed
Previous restrictions were established through measures individually directed at the platforms. Following the legislative change in 2026, Anvisa began reviewing these acts.
According to the Agency, the updates were prompted by formal inquiries related to Law No. 15,357/2026.
In practice, the change paves the way for digital platforms to participate in the pharmaceutical market, but it does not transfer health surveillance functions to them, which remain the responsibility of pharmacies and drugstores.
Licensed pharmacies and drugstores remain responsible for storing medications, pharmaceutical dispensing, and relationships with laboratories.
Platforms may be responsible, according to the regulations yet to be defined, for connecting the establishment to the consumer and participating in logistics and delivery.
This difference is fundamental.
A marketplace is not a pharmacy
Although the experience may seem like a simple in-app purchase to the consumer, distinct steps exist within the pharmaceutical chain.
The marketplace functions as a digital intermediation environment between consumer and establishment. Logistics corresponds to the transportation of the order. Dispensing, on the other hand, is a sanitary healthcare act carried out under the responsibility of the pharmacy or drugstore and involves, when applicable, the oversight of a pharmacist.
Therefore, the entry of apps into this market does not mean that iFood, Rappi, Mercado Livre, Americanas, or Shopee automatically become pharmacies.
Nor does it mean that any seller will be able to advertise medications on these platforms.
Regulations must establish how this new ecosystem will function and what health surveillance requirements will need to be met.
What about cannabis?
Cannabis products authorized by Anvisa are subject to their own rules regarding prescription, dispensing, and sanitary control.
Furthermore, the commercialization of medications subject to special control remains prohibited through this new model, according to information provided by Anvisa, unless future regulations establish specific conditions.
This prevents, at this time, interpreting the revocation of measures against marketplaces as an authorization to freely list cannabis products for sale on apps.
However, the regulatory opening sparks a discussion of direct interest to the sector.
Prescription and traceability
Any eventual inclusion of these products would require answers to questions that go far beyond the technology needed to add an item to a cart.
One of them is the prescription.
The system would need to ensure that the prescription submitted by the patient is valid and compatible with the requested product, preserving the obligations of the pharmacy and pharmacist during dispensing.
Another point is traceability.
In an operation involving a platform, pharmacy, consumer, and potentially a third-party logistics operator, it will be necessary to clearly determine who is accountable for each stage.
This includes product sorting, verification, dispensing, transportation, delivery to the patient, and any occurrences of loss or irregularities.
For products subject to special control, these questions become even more relevant.
Advertising will also be a challenge
The discussion is not limited to sales.
How medications appear inside apps must also be observed.
Marketplace, advertising, and dispensing are distinct activities and are subject to their own sanitary regulations.
In the case of cannabis, this means that the potential presence of products on digital platforms could not be automatically interpreted as broad authorization for advertising or commercial promotion.
Future regulations will have to establish how medications subject to specific rules may appear in search results, recommendations, digital storefronts, and sponsored listings — should they be included in the new model.
The risk of irregular products
There is yet another point particularly relevant to the cannabis market: distinguishing between regulated products and illicit or unauthorized offers.
The expanded presence of medications on major marketplaces increases the importance of mechanisms to identify authorized sellers and products.
For consumers, a digital interface can make offers with completely different regulatory standings look visually identical.
For this reason, criteria for pharmacy onboarding, verification of sanitary authorizations, product identification, and the removal of irregular listings are likely to play a central role in future regulations.
In the cannabis market, this separation is especially relevant given the existence of different regulatory pathways of access.
RDC 660 follows a different logic than major marketplaces
It is also necessary to separate this discussion from products imported directly by patients.
The exceptional import of cannabis-derived products follows its own regime and is carried out for personal use upon prescription and sanitary authorization.
This model should not be confused with the regular commercialization of a product available in the inventory of a Brazilian pharmacy.
Therefore, opening up the participation of marketplaces in pharmaceutical retail does not turn products accessed through the exceptional import pathway into immediate-delivery items within these platforms.
How does it work?
Currently, there are specialized marketplaces and platforms for cannabis products intended for import under RDC 660. In these environments, the requirement for a prescription is clearly presented to the consumer as a condition for purchasing the product, as access takes place within a specific regulatory framework.
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These platforms can act as intermediaries between patients and suppliers of products intended for import, but that does not mean items are available as regular domestic inventory for immediate delivery in the same manner as medicines sold by Brazilian pharmacies.
Under RDC 660, importation is intended for individuals, for personal use, upon prescription by a legally qualified professional and authorization from Anvisa.
The difference, therefore, lies in the model: one thing is specialized marketplaces that broker access to products imported under RDC 660, requiring a prescription; another is the potential participation of major platforms, such as iFood, Rappi, and Mercado Livre, in the intermediation and logistics of medications dispensed by pharmacies and drugstores in the Brazilian market.
Regulation will be decisive
Anvisa still needs to establish specific rules for platform operations, and to date, there is no set date for the publication of these regulations.
Thus, the main change at this moment is not necessarily on the consumer's mobile screen, but in the regulatory debate that is beginning to unfold.
For the medical cannabis sector, several questions warrant monitoring: will products subject to special control eventually be allowed on these platforms? How will prescription validation work? Who will be held accountable for traceability during delivery? What limits will exist on advertising and product exposure? And how will platforms prevent the presence of unauthorized listings?
Lifting these restrictions does not answer these questions.
However, by paving the way for a new relationship among pharmacies, digital platforms, and consumers, it places cannabis at the center of a discussion that could gain momentum in the next phase of Brazilian pharmaceutical regulation.
This framing also avoids an issue present in the initial version: we do not treat “marketplace,” “sale,” “dispensing,” and “delivery” as synonyms. Folha's report confirms that storage, dispensing, and relationships with laboratories remain with licensed pharmacies and drugstores, while platforms may operate in intermediation and delivery following regulation. (Folha de S.Paulo)