Year After 85 Per Cent Price Cut, Stent Price Now Increased Marginally

An year after it cut down stent prices drastically from Rs 45,000 to Rs 7,260 the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority (NPPA) has now allowed bare metal stents (BES) to be priced at Rs 7,660, Mint has reported.

The price for drug-eluting and biodegradable stents however, has been further reduced to Rs 27,890 from Rs 29,600. The price for these stents used to Rs 1.21 lakh till before last year.

Prices of other accessories used during the stenting procedure have also been fixed by the authority, after observing huge differences between import landing prices and MRPs. It has also sought a response from the manufacturers in this regard.

NPPA also disallowed a request by foreign manufacturers for a different category of advanced stents, which has been lauded by Indian manufacturers. The order will be valid till 31 March 2019.

Rajiv Nath, coordinator of the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry, said, “We are happy with NPPA’s new decision to continue with their directive on price cap by not falling to the lobby of overseas multi-national manufacturers. The government and consumers and medical professionals can be assured of support from Indian manufacturers.”