Patients Happy, Industry Upset With Cap On Stent Prices

Reduced stent charges come as big relief for patients but hearts of players in health industry have started beating faster.

- Shalini Bhardwaj

Heart patients, who were forced to shell out a huge amount of money for stents used during angioplasty, are happy with the latest government announcements, setting a price slab on different types of the device. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) recently fixed the price of bare metal stents at ₹7,260 as against ₹45,000 previously and of most used drug-eluting stents at ₹29,600 as against ₹80,000 to ₹1,75,000. Both imported and domestic stents will cost the same. The move has not only been cheered by the patients but is also appreciated by majority of the healthcare industry players. However, a handful of them remain dissatisfied.

The higher authorities in the Central Health Ministry do not agree with the decision of fixing all types of stents prices as they believe this will affect the quality of stents. According to the sources, stents of fourth generation are based on higher technology will not be available in the market. “A health committee, comprising top cardiologists and scientific advisors, decided to fix prices of stents for all generations. But the breakthrough-technology based stents will not be a part of this price fixing. I will raise this issue in health committee as it’s a serious concern and need to be discussed,” said Dr Sanjay Jaiswal, Member, Rajyasabha.