Portugal

Decreto-Lei n.º 307/2007 of 31 August 2007, article 14, permits individuals or commercial companies to own pharmacies. Pharmacist status is not required of the owner. Article 15 caps any one person or company at four pharmacies, directly or indirectly. Article 20 requires a licensed pharmacist as exclusive, permanent director técnico.

That predates Italy’s comparable 2017 reform by a decade and is simpler: a flat national cap rather than a regional percentage. Combined with a physician-staffed telehealth front end, it is the most legally coherent DTC structure available anywhere in southern Europe.

This needs sharpening against the usual reporting. The timeline is: 4 December 2025, the health minister confirms INFARMED is evaluating obesity-drug comparticipação, with a 30 to 40% coverage rate floated and up to 1,800 euros a year in potential patient savings. 18 May 2026, Público reports that comparticipação will proceed only alongside a new evaluation system, which is a structural precondition rather than an imminent rollout. 25 May 2026, Secretary of State Ana Povo says a decision was expected that week and describes it as necessarily restrictive: não será prescrição livre, limited to morbid-obesity patients meeting Directorate-General of Health criteria under multidisciplinary follow-up.

No subsequent despacho or Diário da República publication implementing the scheme could be found. As of the latest dated evidence, the obesity indication remains unreimbursed. What did happen, in February 2026, was a narrow expansion of Ozempic reimbursement to adults with inadequately controlled type 2 diabetes plus BMI 30 or high cardiovascular risk. That is a diabetes change, not an obesity one.

Operação Obélix led to the arrest of an endocrinologist alleged to have prescribed over 65,000 packages of Ozempic, Victoza and Trulicity to 1,914 non-diabetic patients for weight loss, falsifying records to trigger up to 95% state co-payment, with around 3m euros of alleged damage.

A broader investigation reported in April 2026 estimated that over 250m euros of Portugal’s roughly 505m euros of five-year state GLP-1 spend may have been diverted to weight-loss prescribing, with spend up 285% against 12% growth in the diabetic population. That is the direct backdrop both to February 2026’s criteria tightening and to why the pending scheme is being designed restrictively.

Prices conflict across sources and should be treated as indicative. Mounjaro runs roughly 183 euros at 2.5mg to 430 to 445 euros at 15mg, consistent with the 182.92 to 337.63 euros per pen range the government itself cited in May 2026. Novo Nordisk cut Wegovy prices in Portugal around 29 May 2026, reported at roughly 19% on higher doses.

The operator pattern is e-prescription rather than online drug sale. euroClinix runs a Portuguese storefront with free consultation, EU-registered doctors and three to four day delivery. Piko runs a Portuguese-language programme with an app, monitoring and a receita eletrónica válida em Portugal, filled at a physical or regulated online pharmacy. apomeds partners with licensed pharmacies and states it does not itself supply medicines. Dr Online and Oladoctor are more generic telemedicine services.