Why in news?

The National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority (NPPA) has decreased the price of Drug eluting Stents.

What are drug eluting stents?

• Stents are usually metal mesh tubes inserted during PCI, a procedure that widens the blocked artery by temporarily inserting and inflating a tiny balloon.
• Coronary stents are used to open narrowed arteries, reduce symptoms like chest pain and treat a heart attack.
• Even with stents, arteries can sometimes become blocked again. Drug-eluting stents can make this less likely to happen.
• Drug-eluting stents have a polymer coating over mesh that emits a drug over time to help keep the blockage from coming back.

What is the decision on stent pricing?

• India’s drug pricing regulatorNPPAhas further brought down the cost of drug-eluting stents (DES) from Rs.29,600 to Rs.27,890.
• While the cost of bare-metal stents has increased marginally from Rs.7,400 to Rs.7,660.
• The move comes a year after the NPPA slashed stent rates by nearly 85%.
• The NPPA also decided against the request of multinational stent makers for a new category for advanced stents.

What is the need for this move?

• In India there is a very high incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) associated with high morbidity and mortality and CAD has become a major public health problem.
• The CAD drug market in India was an exploitive market system characterised by exorbitant, irrational and restrictive trade margin especially for stents.
• The NPPA’s analysis proved that profit margins for stents are as high as 400% and thus made an intervention for cost optimisation.
• The NPPA held meetings with eminent cardiologists, and found that its earlier move to reduce the price has led to an increase more angioplasties and reduction in bypass surgeries.
• Thus NPPA made this move to fix the ceiling prices of coronary stents in order to protect public interest.

What are the benefits from this move?

• Bare-metal stents have a significantly higher rate of restenosis (the recurrence of abnormal narrowing of an artery or valve after corrective surgery).
• It will help more people opt for DES that are technologically better and more advanced.
• This Price capping will minimise the expenditure in the health sector and allow more people to benefit from it.
• The new order also allows transparency and better government control and audit ease.
• Patients will have the option to get a stent and accessories from outside the establishment, and manufacturers are allowed only 8% trade margin.
• It encourages people to opt for better treatment plans and most importantly break the nexus of unethical pricing.

Source: The Hindu