Stent price capping bad idea, now Centre must fight off this Chinese threat

October 11, 2017 4:36 AM

The Catch-22 the Centre must be finding itself in now may perhaps finally show the government what a bad idea price-capping is. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had capped the prices of coronary stents in February this year to spare patients what it perceived as unduly high prices charged for the device. But, soon enough, it had to face the unintended consequence of cheap Chinese stents starting make their presence felt in the market. The department of industrial policy and promotion had flagged this to the PMO—saying that this may “adversely affect efficacy of treatment”—and the PMO, in turn, asked the health ministry’s expert panel to study if the latest generation of biodegradable stents possess “futuristic innovations”, and could thus be classified under a separate category from the two categories subject to the cap and get a reprieve from price capping. Unfortunately, as per The Indian Express, the expert panel has concluded that “no evidence or data” exists for the biodegradable stents to merit separate classification and be kept out of price-capping. MNC stent-makers who had been holding on to this last hope to sidestep price-capping have now started requesting NPPA to allow them to withdraw their latest-generation products from the Indian market.

Pharma companies incur considerable R&D expenditure in the development of new drugs and devices—taking pricing freedom away from them thus becomes a way to disincentivise research. The worst sufferers of pharma/medical device companies exiting the Indian market or pulling out products will be patients as they will no longer be able to access the latest generation products, whether or not they are labelled “futuristic innovations”. Restricting free market operations is not good for any economy as it erodes business confidence in policy though there may be short-run gains from populism. While The Indian Express report quotes a domestic stent-maker heading an industry association to say that price capping has allowed domestic players to grow their market share, bear in mind the market share of the Chinese has grown too.
Reference:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

India Joins Russia in Voting Against West-Backed Move to Expand Powers of OPCW

The Wire: June 28, 2018 New Delhi: India voted against a UK-backed move that will allow the global chemical weapons watchdog to apportion blame for illegal attacks, criticising the decision to grant “unchecked powers” to the head of the group which could be used for “partisan” purposes. On Wednesday, more than two-thirds of the member states of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted to authorise the international body to identify the perpetrators and sponsors of a chemical weapons attack. It also specifically called on the OPCW’s technical secretariat to begin work on identifying the perpetrators behind the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The draft decision, sponsored by 30 countries, was adopted at the fourth special session of the conference of the states parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention at the Hague, with 82 in favour and 24 negative votes. While Europe, the United States and their allies voted ‘yes’, there was strong oppo
Read more

As financial insecurity rises in urban India, so does investment in insurance

Image
Scroll.in March 13, 2020 Urban Indians are becoming less confident about their financial security. Up to 58% of them fret over financial independence post retirement, which is a 4% increase from last year. An equal share of urban Indians worry about meeting their daily medical expenses and sustaining their current lifestyle once they stop working. The findings are part of a survey published by Delhi-based Max Life Insurance in association with London-based consultancy Kantar. The firms surveyed 7,014 respondents in 25 cities, including six metros, nine tier-1 cities, and 10 tier-2 cities, between December 2019 and January 2020. Source: Max Life Insurance via Quartz The trends Source: Max Life Insurance via Quartz Source: Max Life Insurance via Quartz Source: Max Life Insurance via Quartz A significant share of urban Indians also say their families will have no financial support in the event of the breadwinner’s death. In such a scenario, around 57% believe the family sav
Read more

ED tracks Swiss Bank A/Cs of Agusta scamster

The Poineer February 10,2019 Rakesh K Singh The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has tracked a dozen Swiss bank accounts in the name of Rajiv Saxena, who is key accused in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam. The ED has also found out accounts held by  his family members and associates where the kickbacks in the now scrapped deal were allegedly parked. Two bank accounts are in the name of Rajiv Saxena’s  associates Pankaj Jain and Sumita Jain who are also the authorised signatories. The  third is in the name of another associate Ajit Singh Bubber, but Rajiv and his family members are authorised signatories. The remaining nine accounts are largely owned and operated by Rajiv, his family members and associates. Rajiv Saxena was deported by the UAE authorities on January 30 and the ED formally arrested him the next day and a court later granted his remand to the agency. He is currently undergoing custodial interrogation by the ED. The agency had in 2017 arrested his
Read more