Hyderabad: Xience Alpine Premium, the high-end metallic stent from Abbott Healthcare, will now be discontinued in the Indian market, in a move approved by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority.
Applications for withdrawal of premium stents was made in August 2017, following the order slashing prices of cardiac stents in March of that year and there were demands from three companies to withdraw stents from the market.
Abbott, Medtronic and Boston Scientific Corporation filed for withdrawal of their new-generation stents, stating that the pricing regime made their products unviable.
According to sources, however, the Department of Pharmaceuticals invoked the Drug Price Control Order and stated that the companies could not withdraw their products without following proper procedure, upon which the applications were submitted and Abbott has now been granted permission to withdraw.
Senior cardiologist Sunil Kapoor says, “New-generation stents for patients who can afford them will now not be available. Only those stents which fit into the government’s price regime will be available. This means India is going back by 10 years in terms of heart care.”
Other doctors, however, say, the latest drug eluting stents are available in the Indian market.
Gandhi Hospital cardiology department head Nitin Kabra said, “There are three generations of drug eluting stents available in the market. There are also bare-metal stents. It isn’t as though people have no choice.”
Existing stents in the Indian market are compatible for patients, say other doctors, who add that the reduction in the trade margin to just 8 per cent is what has kept the controversy going. Of course, there are those who say out dated and old stents are being dumped in India.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior cardiologist explains, “The one size fits all policy of the government is proving to be a hurdle. We now need to make it mandatory to collect data of cases of deep vein thrombosis and sudden deaths owing to major heart attacks in stent cases. This will help people understand why it is important to make the latest technology available.”
