Pharma price regulator asks manufacturers to submit stent pricing data within one week

NPPA asked stent manufacturers to provide data within one week. The notification was issued on 5th October, 2016. India's pharma pricing regulator has been entrusted the duty to fix the prices of stents after it was added to the National List of Essential Medicines earlier this year. According to the notice issued by the NPPA, some companies have not submitted data as required by the NPPA, some have not submitted the information in the format prescribed by the NPPA, while others have not submitted the soft copy of the data.

According to the NPPA notification, the pharma price regulator requested stent manufacturers to send the data first in November 2015 after which reminders were sent periodically to these manufacturers.

Stent manufacturers, domestic and multinationals have been in discussions with the NPPA and Department of Pharmaceuticals on the whether there should be dynamic pricing for drug eluting stents or there ought to be one price for all kinds of drug eluting stents.

The multinationals have been batting for dynamic pricing stating that their "Next Generation" stents are superior. On the other hand, the domestic manufacturers have been batting for one kind price arguing that there is no proof to establish that "Next Generation"stents are superior.