NPPA rejects requests made by Abbott & Medtronic to withdraw stents

As a rebuttal to the government's imposition of a price ceiling for coronary stents, pharma majors, Abott and Medtronic sought permission from the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), to withdraw their stent products, absorb BVS, Alpine and Resolute Onyx from the Indian markets.

The drug pricing regulator, NPPA, rejected the companies' applications on April 26, 2017 to withdraw their stents on account of low commercial viability. The pricing regulator dismissed the request, saying that the companies must maintain uninterrupted supplies of their stents to the market for six months from the date of the order according to government orders under Para 3 of the Drug Prices Control Order, 2013.

The regulator also accussed the companies of not publishing weekly reports on the production and distribution of coronary stents in the country, along with a weekly production plan as directed by the government.

NPPA had set the price (exclusive of VAT) of bare metal stents at Rs 7,260; and drug-eluting stent (DES) and biodegradable stents at Rs 29,600, significantly lower than the market prices.

Abbott, Medtronics, Meril Lifesciences and Boston Scientific constitute 60 per cent of the stent market in India; whereas, DES constitutes 95 per cent of the stent market.