LONDON, August 4 (APM) - India's drug price regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is to launch a new smartphone app that will provide prices of essential drugs across different regional states in the country in order to reduce overcharging of drugs, it is being reported on Thursday.
The Economic Times reported that the android phone version of the application will be launched on August 29 by the country's minister of chemicals and fertilisers, Anant Kumar.
The tool was developed by the government body National Informatics Centre and smartphone users will be able to access it within another two months, the report adds.
The price app is an extension of the regulator's Pharma Jan Samadhan web-portal to smartphones.
The Pharma Jan Samadhan portal was a grievances redressal initiative set up by the NPPA in 2015 aimed at providing a consumer friendly system to address issues related to drug price and availability of medicines.
India controls prices of essential drugs through regulations such as the Drug Price Control Order.
Currently, the NPPA is running a test version of the app available on the Google store. Providing a description of the services, the regulator said that the app will provide the maximum retail price of "scheduled" drugs.
The report said that medicines under the National List of Essential Medicines (NELM) were included in the app and patients can search ceiling prices by entering the generic name and state they are buying from.
Bhupendra Singh, chairman of the NPPA said: "Retailers and manufacturers will come to know that they cannot take consumers for granted. Consumers can use the app before paying for a medicine to ensure that they get the right price. At present, whatever action we take against the companies, including recoveries, the consumer does not get back the overcharged amount he or she has paid."
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