Patients in India pay up to 25 times the factory or import cost of some medical devices, domestic device-makers have told the government, saying they are forced to inflate maximum retail prices (MRPs) to sustain margins for hospitals and retailers.<\/p>\n
A body representing domestic device-makers has for nearly two years repeatedly urged the Centre through letters and meetings to regulate trade margins and curb the inflation of MRPs, documents and presentations reviewed by The Telegraph show.<\/p>\n
The Association of Indian Medical Devices (AIMED), an umbrella organisation of 300 device-makers, has asked the government to cap trade margins and MRPs to \u201cbuild a fairer, more transparent, and patient-centric medical devices market\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients are largely oblivious to what is happening now,\u201d Rajiv Nath, AIMED\u2019s coordinator, told this newspaper. \u201cThe new regulations we\u2019re seeking are aimed at stopping inflated MRPs being passed on to patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caps on trade margins will also provide domestic device-makers a level playing field when competing with imported devices that account for roughly 70 per cent of the Indian medical devices market, valued at about \u20b91.3 lakh crore.<\/p>\n
The market for medical devices is not operating under open competition that typically drives down prices, AIMED said, adding that manufacturers are often compelled to inflate MRPs to accommodate margins for hospitals and retailers.<\/p>\n
A manufacturer of dressings, bandages and plasters said his firm could easily set MRPs at four to five times the factory cost of its products. But hospitals and retailers tend to favour products priced at 10 to 20 times the underlying cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve often been verbally told by purchase officers in hospitals that we need to increase our MRPs,\u201d said Manish Sabharwal, chief executive officer of a firm that exports products to some 40 countries. \u201cThe higher the MRPs, the larger the margins that hospitals make.\u201d<\/p>\n
A syringe that costs \u20b93 to manufacture could be sold at around \u20b912 with reasonable trade margins, but carries a price tag of \u20b930. A pacemaker imported at \u20b925,000 could be priced near \u20b975,000, yet is listed at \u20b92 lakh. At the higher end, a heart valve brought into the country at \u20b94 lakh may be sold at \u20b98 lakh, but has an MRP of \u20b926 lakh.<\/p>\n
In one such presentation, AIMED highlighted the pricing of a three-way stopcock \u2014 a device widely used in patients receiving intravenous fluids or medications \u2014 where retail prices can exceed 25 times base cost.<\/p>\n
Stopcocks with factory or import costs ranging between \u20b95 and \u20b916 are sold with retail price tags between \u20b995 and \u20b9136. One brand, with a factory price of \u20b95.60, is marked at \u20b9136, while another imported at \u20b915 is priced at \u20b9105.<\/p>\n
AIMED cited these instances in a July 2024 communication to the department of pharmaceuticals, the central agency that regulates medicines and medical devices.<\/p>\n
The industry body has also written to the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), which has the mandate to cap prices of medicines and certain medical devices.<\/p>\n
Email queries sent by this newspaper to the department and the NPPA seeking their responses to the concerns expressed by AIMED have not evoked a reply.<\/p>\n
\u201cEthical manufacturers are pushed into reluctantly inflating MRPs,\u201d Rajiv
Nath said.<\/p>\n
In presentations to the department and the NPPA, AIMED has proposed trade margin caps of 50 per cent for devices priced above \u20b91 lakh (such as heart valves), 66 per cent for those costing between \u20b91,000 and \u20b91 lakh (such as pacemakers), and 75 per cent for devices below \u20b91,000, such as syringes and IV infusion sets.<\/p>\n
A healthcare industry leader said it would be unfair to blame hospitals for seeking margins on medical devices. \u201cMany hospitals incur losses from treatment services, including surgeries,\u201d said Girdhar Gyani, director-general of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India, representing some 20,000 hospitals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know of any hospital asking for higher MRPs, but if they\u2019re seeking margins on devices, it is only to offset those losses,\u201d Gyani told this newspaper.<\/p>\n
One industry insider said officials at the department of pharmaceuticals and the NPPA \u201cappear empathetic\u201d to AIMED\u2019s concerns during meetings and have indicated a willingness to review trade margins. \u201cIt\u2019s on the agenda nearly every quarter when we have these periodic meetings with policy-makers and regulators. But we are yet to see any concrete outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patients in India pay up to 25 times the factory or import cost of some medical devices, domestic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[204209,134,527,204207,204208,7586,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-395079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-association-of-indian-medical-device-industry-aimed","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-medical-device-prices-india-mrp-margin","tag-medical-device-sector","tag-medical-devices","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}