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.
