In a major relief to heart patients Government of india has taken a land mark step in pharmaceutical industry. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has fixed the ceiling price of drug eluting stents (DES) and bioresorbable stents at Rs 30,000 and bare metal stents at Rs 7,500.
This comes as a huge relief to lakhs of patients who have to undergo coronary angioplasty to insert stents to open up clogged arteries. Over six lakh stents were estimated to have been used in angioplasties in India in 2016.
The cost of a drug eluting stent currently ranges between Rs 24,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh and that of a bioresorbable stent is Rs 1.7 lakh to Rs 2 lakh.
According to data submitted by stent companies to the NPPA , the average manufacturing cost of a DES for a domestic company is about Rs 8,000 and prices of imported DES start at about Rs 5,000. The NPPA also revealed that a stent could cost the patient over ten times by the time it moved from the manufacturer to the patient.
The data showed that hospitals made the maximum profit on stents , marking up prices by as much as 650% in some cases.
“Hospitals now under legal obligation to bill cardiac stents separately from ‘procedure’ or ‘packages’,” tweeted NPPAindia.
“It is good that more people will now be able to afford this life-saving device; however, in the long run I see high-quality stents disappearing from our market because of the cap. It would have been a better idea to divide stents into different categories, including specialised stents, and then fix the price. These devices can’t be divided into just two broad categories,” says senior cardiologist Dr Purshottam Lal.
Hopefully now heart patients will get such costly stent at fixed price which will save their lives as well as their pocket.
This comes as a huge relief to lakhs of patients who have to undergo coronary angioplasty to insert stents to open up clogged arteries. Over six lakh stents were estimated to have been used in angioplasties in India in 2016.
The cost of a drug eluting stent currently ranges between Rs 24,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh and that of a bioresorbable stent is Rs 1.7 lakh to Rs 2 lakh.
According to data submitted by stent companies to the NPPA , the average manufacturing cost of a DES for a domestic company is about Rs 8,000 and prices of imported DES start at about Rs 5,000. The NPPA also revealed that a stent could cost the patient over ten times by the time it moved from the manufacturer to the patient.
The data showed that hospitals made the maximum profit on stents , marking up prices by as much as 650% in some cases.
“Hospitals now under legal obligation to bill cardiac stents separately from ‘procedure’ or ‘packages’,” tweeted NPPAindia.
“It is good that more people will now be able to afford this life-saving device; however, in the long run I see high-quality stents disappearing from our market because of the cap. It would have been a better idea to divide stents into different categories, including specialised stents, and then fix the price. These devices can’t be divided into just two broad categories,” says senior cardiologist Dr Purshottam Lal.
Hopefully now heart patients will get such costly stent at fixed price which will save their lives as well as their pocket.
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