What is the issue?
- In India, emergency angioplasty was carried out in less than 10% of patients mainly because of the cost involved in the procedure and the lack of access to stents.
- So, in February 2017, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority slashed prices of stents by up to 85%.
What is a Stent?
- Stents are tiny metal tubes coated with medication, which are inserted into clogged arteries to keep them flowing well.
- The devices save thousands of lives globally, every year.
- Emergency angioplasty is the treatment of choice during an acute heart attack, wherein the clot is crushed with a balloon and a stent is placed.
- It improves the chance of the patient surviving by almost 30% when compared to clot dissolving medication.
- So, bringing the devices under price control was necessary to enable more patients to make use of this procedure.
What are the problems?
- Senior cardiologists have noticed a disturbing increase in multi-vessel stenting.
- With cheaper stents and a fall in procedure costs, many more patients are opting for angioplasty.
- Another issue is the availability of latest generation stents.
- Major international stent companies had filed for withdrawing their latest products from the Indian market.
- If this happens, newer and innovative stent technology will never be introduced in India.
- Research on indigenous stents has become a victim of the government’s plan.
- With prices of imported stents and Indian stents now being the same, doctors and patients could prefer the imported devices.
- If the situation continues, the financial viability of Indian stent manufacturers could be hit.
- Also, in India, before innovating, manufacturing and marketing a stent, a company has to go through several regulatory hurdles.
- This will have a bearing on their capacity to do quality research.
- Ultimately, lack of indigenous research and development will make the country dependent on imported stents.
- Medical tourism also will be hit as it will become apparent that Indian hospitals do not have the latest generation stents.
What could be done?
- There must be a system to make sure that the latest medical devices, including stents, are priced differently.
- All aspects involving medical device development must be fast-tracked and should be as transparent as possible.
- The government must support Indian stent manufacturers and medical device research so that we don’t have to depend on imported stents.
Source: The Indian Express
