The Impact of Platforms in the Healthcare Industry; a case study of platform "1 mg" reducing the cost of medicine in India

In this case study, the impact of an online pharmacy platform in India called 1mg.com on the availability and price of regulated versus unregulated formulations of certain essential medicines, is investigated. Although this paper cannot make an absolute statement that 1mg.com does promote the sale of regulated medicine formulations, it provides evidence that the platform facilitates the sale of regulated formulations when patients cannot buy them in physical pharmacies. Furthermore, the paper provides a small overview of platform businesses in general and the troubled Indian pharmaceutical sector.