Government extends caps price of knee implants for one more year

New Delhi: Through a recent notification, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India has extended the cap on prices for knee implants, ranging from Rs 54,000 to Rs 1.14 lakh for a year.

Providing relief to patients going for knee implants, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has extended the ceiling prices till 15th August 2019.

"The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, NPPA, hereby decided that applicability of the ceiling prices fixed for orthopaedic knee implants vide SO 2668(E) dated 16-Aug-2017 shall be extended for a period of another one year (i.e upto 15-Aug-2019) unless revised by another gazette notification," said a notification.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that in August last year, the government had capped prices of knee implants at a significantly lower rate than the market rates.

Read also: Knee Surgery Implants now under Price Ceiling, Effective Immediately

As part of the initiative, NPPA had capped the price of widely used Chromium Cobalt knee implants at Rs 54,720.

Prior to that, it used to cost between Rs 1.58 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh. This particular type of knee implant has around 80 percent market share.

The new MRP of special metal titanium and oxidized zirconium was fixed at Rs 76,600 plus GST, 69 percent lower than an average rate of Rs 2,49,251 earlier.

High flexibility implant was fixed at Rs 56,490 plus GST, 69 percent lower than average MRP of Rs 1,81,728 earlier.

Special metal and high flexibility knee implants account for another 17 percent of the market.

In September last year, Medical device makers body Medical Technology Association of India (MTaI) had asked the national drug pricing regulator NPPA to revisit the decision to implement price controls on knee implants and had also expressed concern over the manner in which the NPPA had moved to cap the prices of knee implants.

Read also: Need to revisit price cap on knee implants: MTaI

Below is the attached notification for the same.