BioVoice News March 2017 Issue 10 Volume 1 | Page 18

cover story

fixing the ceiling prices of coronary stents on February 14 , 2017 . The step would bring down the cost of coronary stents , currently hiked by about 380 percent , informed Union Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs , Mr Ananth Kumar adding that now the ceiling prices of Bare Metal Stents ( BMS ), having 10 percent market share , has been capped at Rs 7,260 and Drug Eluting stents ( DES ), having 90 percent market share , at Rs 29,600 . These prices are exclusive of VAT and other local taxes .
The Minister further stated that since most of the States have 5 percent
VAT on stents , the MRP of BMS and DES would be Rs 7623 and Rs 31,080 . National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority ( NPPA ) has fixed the prices within 60 days as required , he added .
The government says that it step is a major decisive action on the unethical margins charged at each stage in the supply chain of coronary stents and also the new prices are not likely to make much adverse impact on industry . The logic is that the average MRP in the market for BMS was Rs 45,000 and for DES Rs 1,21,000 . This has been reduced to Rs 7623 for BMS and Rs 31,080 for DES . Thus , based on price reduction , patients will get average benefit of 80-90 thousand per stent resulting into a gross relief of Rs 4450 crores in one year .
Earlier the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had included Coronary Stents in the National List of Essential Medicines , 2015 ( NLEM , 2015 ) on 19th July 2016 and the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers incorporated Coronary Stents in Schedule I of the Drug Prices Control Order ( DPCO ), 2013 on 21st December 2016 . The Ministry , after reviewing the recommendation of Ministry of Health , had directed the NPPA to hold multistakeholder consultations with industry and industry associations , manufacturers , importers , hospital associations , distributors ’ associations , doctors and NGOs and other civil society members for fixing the ceiling prices of coronary stents . All the data provided by industry was put on NPPA website and major options for price fixation and prices put in public domain for consultation .
18 BioVoiceNews | March 2017