India is urged to make stents essential medicines to help control price

The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has urged the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority to make cardiac stents essential medicines to help control the price patients have to pay for them.

A recent survey by the Maharashtra FDA found that the maximum retail price of cardiac stents across India was 300-700% of their actual import cost. And the Economic Times newspaper reported that importers inflate the maximum retail price, domestic distributors sell the stents to hospitals at a profit margin of 125%, and then hospitals charge patients …