India: Knee implants, replacement to cost more

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, the regulatory authority for medical devices and drugs, has allowed manufacturers and importers of knee implants to revise their costs for a period of one year, .i.e. till September 2024

Hyderabad: After a gap of six years, orthopedic knee implants and knee replacement systems are expected to go up by 10-12 per cent.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the regulatory authority for medical devices and drugs, has allowed manufacturers and importers of knee implants to revise their costs for a period of one year, .i.e. till September 2024.

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It was in 2017-18 that the NPPA capped the cost of knee replacement systems in the country. Since then, the prices of such crucial medical implants were not revised, despite repeated requests from manufacturers.

However, for the last few months, associations representing medical device manufacturers and importers in the country have made multiple representations to the regulatory authorities to allow them to revise the costs of the knee replacement systems. Following these representations, a few days ago, the NPPA gave a green signal for a marginal increase in the cost of the implants.

It fixed the ceiling prices of vital medical implants such as stents and knee replacement systems to ensure that the cost remains affordable to all patients. The next review of prices of all medical devices will be taken up in September 2024.

Before the NPPA came up with ceiling rates, the cost of life-saving implants, including stents and knee and joint replacement implants, were offered at unreasonably and unjustified pricing. The costs of such implants invariably were pretty high just to ensure that the trade margins for manufacturers and importers were high.

A few years ago, the NPPA had conducted a market research on medical implants and noticed that the cost of orthopedic knee implants were unjustified and unreasonable.

Irrationally high trade margins were leading to exorbitant prices, forcing poor patients to incur out-of-pocket expenses. Due to these reasons, the NPPA had put a ceiling on the cost of all medical implants, including knee replacement systems.