Contrary to the news that has been circulating on the India government’s offer to the US to replace price cap for coronary stents, the Centre has actually listened to the request of The Indian Medical Devices Industry to not to remove price caps on Stents for at least 2 more years to ensure continued affordable access to Indian consumers and allow Indian manufacturers to continue to further gain credibility that their lower price is NOT lower quality or less safe and less innovative, as some lobbyists would like us to believe.





Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator, Association of Indian Manufacturers of Medical Device (AIMED), said that they are pleased that the Centre did not relent to 3 MNC lobbying pressure to protect their profiteering & decided to protect healthcare interest of common masses & safeguard India’s Ayushman Bharat Modicare programme by not rolling back Price Caps on Stents.





He said that the importers’ lobby is least concerned about making healthcare affordable for Indian consumers & Indian Medical Device Industry but thinks only for protecting their own profits.





Nath said that at AIMED they have been specifically seeking Trade Margin Caps on Devices notified as Drugs but from 1st point of sale in Supply Chain, which as per them is when 1st sale takes place and GST is applied 1st time e.g. when goods enter country (on the CIF import landed price for imported and Ex-factory price for Indian). This will maintain parity between Indian and overseas manufacturers.





For some devices like Stents where there is excessive price disparity between Indian manufacturers low price and imported device very high price, there may be a need to consider for such exceptional cases, Price Caps e.g. Stents and IV Cannulas.





On other Devices notified as Drugs we recommend NPPA to consider to apply AIMED’s proposed formula to cap trade margins over import landed/ex-factory price e.g. Syringes and Spinal implants on an experimental basis and study the impact on MRP reduction and as a Make in India and ethical marketing enabler for ensuring affordable access.

On the other hand, considering Trade Margin Caps on stockists & Hospitals & Retailers without capping Trade Margins of Importers/ marketing organizations / Distributors may not lead to reduced MRP, ethical marketing or put an end to high Trade Margin induced sales. You can’t have an importer making 200 percent mark up and rest of the whole of supply chain sharing only 30 percent margin (43 percent mark-up).