Prices of knee implants cut sharply

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 16

Six months after reducing the prices of coronary stents, the government today cracked down on exorbitantly priced knee implants, fixing their ceiling prices in a major financial relief to patients.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the Centre’s drug pricing wing, in an order today capped the prices of most widely used knee implants (cobalt-chromium) at Rs 54,720 as against the previous MRP of Rs 1.58 lakh.

The second category of implants (titanium, oxidised zirconium), currently priced at Rs 2.49 lakh, cannot be sold for more than Rs 76,600 now. The cost reduction works out to be around 69 per cent, as it does for the high flexibility implants now capped at a price of Rs 56,490 against the old MRP of Rs 1.81 lakh.

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Revision implants, used in a more complicated form of orthopaedic surgery, will not cost more than Rs 1,13,950. The previous price was Rs 2,76,869.

With around 1.5 lakh annual orthopaedic knee implants in India, patients are expected to save Rs 1,500 crore.

“By 2020, osteoarthritis will be the fourth largest cause of immobility in the world. India has 1.2-1.5 crore orthopaedic patients who require implant surgeries. Most of those diagnosed are not able to afford the operation. The government is reforming this by putting a ceiling from today,” Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar said today.

For specialised implants for cancer and tumours, the NPPA has fixed the ceiling at Rs 1,13,950, taking away the cost-fixing discretion from hospitals and surgeons.

The government said complaints of overcharging would be monitored directly and the overcharged amount would have to be returned with 18 per cent interest, if proven right.