The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, Tukaram Mundhe, is advocating for a national review of medical device pricing regulations. This push follows a state government survey revealing exorbitant markups on hospital surgical consumables and medical devices, with some prices inflated by as much as 2,841%. The findings highlight a significant concern regarding the affordability of essential medical supplies in the healthcare system.
He sought a review of the survey’s findings and appropriate action—including capping trade margins or bringing essential device categories under structured price monitoring, LiveMint reported. Flagging the massive gaps in procurement prices and declared MRPs, Mundhe has written to the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the country’s drug pricing regulator. The Maharashtra officer has been in the news over his massive crackdown over food safety violations across the state, particularly after his department sent show-cause notices to Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff over their participating as brand endorsers for Vimal, allegedly a tobacco product. “The result is a system where the party bearing the cost has the least information to evaluate it. The NPPA is examining whether manufacturers and intermediary supply channels are adding huge markups between wholesale procurement prices and the prices charged to patients, Livemint quoted two officials as saying. It has also received similar representations from drug commissioners in Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, the officials were quoted as saying.
“Our survey has revealed an extraordinary disparity between the trade procurement price and the printed maximum retail prices (MRP) of medical devices used in inpatient care, reaching as high as 2,841% in some cases, including IV sets, syringes, nebulizers and oxygen mask products,” Mundhe was quoted as saying. “Patients cannot compare prices, seek alternatives, or question a number printed on a box while receiving care and the MRP itself is often fixed upstream by manufacturers and distributors, disconnected from the trade price by a wide, unexplained margin,” the IAS officer highlighted. “We urge regulators and policymakers to act on Mr Mundhe’s call by instituting structured price monitoring and margin rationalization, starting with some pilot studies on AiMeDs proposals as policy making by evidence,” the AiMeD said in a statement late Tuesday. “Patients deserve fair prices, not inflated margins, and India deserves a medical device ecosystem that is affordable, ethical, and globally competitive,” Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD), representing 1,000 member companies, was quoted as saying.
