Since its inception in 1997, the National Pharmaceutical Administration Price (NPPA) attempted to control drug prices through various supply-side initiatives, which gave limited success. This time, NPPA announced a new initiative, which was aimed at educating consumers about the inexpensive alternative medicines prescribed by doctors. By providing consumers with information on the various brands and their prices, NPPA had hoped to offer the client an independent choice of drugs through short message service (SMS, or "text"). NPPA, seems to be working on the premise that the client self-selection may lead to self-regulation of consumption, thus giving more control of healthcare costs for customers. Given the huge penetration of mobile phones in India and the gradual reduction of a variety of mobile payments for services, text services looked possible. However, the proposed system has met with strong opposition from other interested parties, such as doctors and chemists. In addition, large-scale adoption of services questioned how the decision making process for drugs was very difficult. "Hide
by KR Jayasimha, Srabanti Mukherjee Source: Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation 14 pages. Publication Date: May 25, 2012. Prod. #: W12043-PDF-ENG
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