|
AIDAN asks govt to reject bullying tactics of US-based medical device industry; demands expansion of price control on 20 more devices
|
|
Ramesh Shankar, Mumbai
October 28 , 2017
|
|
|
Even as the US India Trade Policy Forum is meeting in Washington DC, the
All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), an NGO working in the health
sector, has urged the Indian government to reject the bullying tactics
of the US-based medical device industry as access to health products is
non-negotiable. AIDAN has also demanded expansion of price control on
other 20 more medical devices which are categorised as drugs under the
Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
Condemning the pressurising tactics of
the US-based medical device industry to undermine the Indian
government’s actions to make health products more affordable and
accessible for millions of people, AIDAN said the move of US
multinational companies through the industry association, Advanced
Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) to approach the US Trade
Representative (USTR) with a demand to partially or fully suspend or
withdraw India’s benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences
(GSP) is highly reprehensible. AdvaMed had approached the USTR with a
demand to partially or fully suspend or withdraw India’s benefits under
the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) which is expected to be
taken up at the US India Trade Policy Forum.
This is a barefaced
attempt to intimidate the Indian government and retaliate against its
decision to fix the retail prices of cardiovascular stents and knee
implants in the public interest and exposes the unabashed greed of the
industry and its willingness to hold poor peoples’ health at ransom for
the sake of maximising profits, AIDAN in a statement said.
In the
past, the US biopharmaceutical industry has used similar tactics –
backed by the US government – to pressurise the Department of Industrial
Policy & Promotion (DIPP) to roll back decisions related to the
rejection of patents on critical medicines such as sofosbuvir for
hepatitis C. Such pressurising tactics are now being applied by US
corporations like Abbott, Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson to
try and get the Indian government to dilute/reverse price control
measures on essential medical devices that are increasingly being used
to save lives and improve quality of life, and also to preclude policy
interventions to safeguard the public health of people in India.
The
well-thought-out decision to regulate the prices of cardiovascular
stents and knee implants put an end to the rampant overcharging and the
exploitation of patients by hospitals, doctors and companies acting in
cohort, the NGO said.
In the case of stents, data collected by
the NPPA clearly show that cardiovascular stents were being sold by
hospitals at extremely high markups from the price at which they were
procured (for example, 436% for bare metal stents and 654% in the case
of drug eluting stents, on average). This was an outcome of unethical
business practices, established and institutionalised by the leading
foreign stent manufacturers, which rely upon commissions to hospitals
and kickbacks to members of the medical fraternity to boost sales and
gain market share. Helpless patients were therefore being charged
artificially inflated prices that bore no relation to the manufacturing
or import costs.
The grievances propagated by the US medical
devices industry are disingenuous on two other fronts. The Indian
Government rejected the companies’ demand for differential pricing for
cardiovascular stents based on claims of innovation due to the complete
lack of any data to support such claims. In fact these companies (Abbott
Healthcare, Boston Scientific and Medtronic) failed to submit
verifiable and credible evidence to demonstrate clinical superiority of
the so-called “innovative” stents. Closer scrutiny of the “innovative”
stents showed that they are actually “me-too” products that were being
sold at a premium in order to create more profits, to the detriment of
patients, AIDAN in its statement said.
Calling upon the Indian
government to uphold the constitutional obligation on right to health
and reject any pressure to review price controls on medical devices,
AIDAN further appealed to the government to approach the Competition
Commission of India to carry out an investigation into prevalent
anti-competitive practices in the marketing of medical devices,
especially stents and orthopaedic implants. It also called on the US
government to refrain from exerting policy pressure on India for taking
measures to make medicines and medical devices more affordable and
accessible to patients that need them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TOPICS
|
That foods might provide therapeutic benefits is clearly not a new concept. ...
|
|
|
|
|