Cardiac stents to cost 2% more as regulator allows prices to be raised

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority allows manufacturers to make adjustment for inflation

Heart patients’ treatment bill is set to rise after India’s drug cost regulator allowed manufacturers and importers to increase the price of coronary stents by almost 2 per cent to account for inflation.

 

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), in an order dated March 27, asked manufacturers and importers of coronary stents whose retail prices are lower than the ceiling set by it to review and revise the prices at 1.74 per cent of the wholesale price index (WPI) for 2024.

 

The regulator, earlier on Wednesday, allowed companies to increase prices of scheduled drugs in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) by 1.74 per cent, on the basis of changes in the wholesale price index.

 

The ceiling price of a bare metal stent will increase to Rs 10,692.69, while those of eluting, biometallic and bioresorbable vascular scaffold stents will be fixed at Rs 38,933.14 per unit.

 

NPPA said that manufacturers not complying with the ceiling price shall be liable to deposit the overcharged amount along with interest under the provisions of the Drugs Prices Control Order, 2013. It asked stent retailers and dealers to display in their business locations a price list furnished by the manufacturer.

 

India has a high burden of cardiovascular diseases. As many as 32,457 people died of heart attack in the country in 2022: a 12.5 per cent rise from 2021, according to data with National Crime Records Bureau.

 

The NPPA has also fixed ceiling prices for various types of ringer lactate injections and an injectable fixed dose combination of piperacillin and tazobactam.

 

Ringer lactate is an intravenous solution used to replace fluids and electrolytes in cases of dehydration or low blood volume. A combination of piperacillin and tazobactam is used in the treatment of bacterial infections such as pneumonia.