61% Stents Used Last Year Were Made In India

New Delhi, 14 Feb 2018: If National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority (NPPA) chairman Bhupendra Singh’s tweet on Tuesday afternoon is any indication, the ‘Make in India’ slogan has truly worked for stents. A day after he announced a further cut in stent prices, Singh said 61% of the stents distributed in the country in 2017 were manufactured by Indian companies.

The popular perception is, as supported by previous market trends, that foreign companies enjoyed almost 70% of the stent market share in India. But as per the NPPA, last year, imported brands, including Abbott, Medtronic and Boston, made up for only 33%. In 2016, Indian firms accounted for 57% of the stents distributed, which rose to 61% following price capping.

Chinese stents had risen from nil in 2016 to 7,656—or 1% of the total distributed stents—in 2017, tweeted Singh, who also put out a table showing that 5.4 lakh India-made stents had been distributed in 2017 as against 5.1 lakh the previous year.

Doctors question claim that Indian stents have cornered market

Stents from American MNCs, his table showed, had reduced from 3.5 lakh to 3 lakh—a 6% drop—in 2017. Singh’s accompanying text was: “Market data on performance of various stent manufacturing companies in 2017. The much-hyped and feared country's share only 1%.” Non-American MNCs distributed 40,588 (5%) as against 38,654 in 2016. The data also showed that the share of stents imported from US manufacturers dropped by a mere 1%, despite threats that they would completely disappear from India after price capping.

Incidentally, the Cardiological Society of India in its 2015 registry showed that Indian stents accounted for less than 30% of use. The NPPA tweet shows the number of distributed stents. Roughly, five lakh angioplasty procedures are carried out across India every year; a procedure may require one or multiple stents.

Ganesh Sabath, president, Indian Stent Manufacturers Association, said the NPPA stats took domestic players by surprise. “What the NPPA did in 2017 was create a level playing field between multinational corporations and us. But we never imagined our share to grow to over 60%,” he told TOI. “My own company, Sadanand Medical Technology in Surat (the largest manufacturer of Indian stents), grew by nearly 80% last year.” He said the credit goes to Indian cardiologists and hospitals, “who have started believing in us”.

But cardiologist Dr Anand Rao said the new numbers are questionable. “With price cut, patients can now afford the best of imported stents at the same price as Indian-made stents. So, most doctors would naturally prefer reputed ones backed by good research and data.” Another senior cardiologist too raised questions about the data and said that in bigger cities and prestigious hospitals, apprehensions still exist about Indian stents. “They may give us the best replica, but there is still not enough data to support their claims of safety and efficacy. Now that their profits have gone up, we can hope they will invest in some research,” said the doctor. “Tier-II and III cities may be the main markets for Indian stents.”

Dr Praveen Chandra, former head, Cardiological Society of India, said the use of American stents have gone up in most big hospitals in the country. Doctors said they were surprised to find the rising use of India-make stents. “There is no scientific data to say Indian stents are good. If we want to send Indian stents across the world, we need research data over a period to show they work well. Such data is not available.” ET Health World