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Separate Rules To Spur Medical Devices
Sector Soon
In lines with the prime ministers ‘Make in India Campaign’,
the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) has identified medical
devices as one among the top five sectors having good investment potential in
the domestic as well as export market. The government has approached the
industry, to gauge the market dynamics and understand their demands and
challenges.
In a bid to encourage investments in domestic manufacturing,
the government has also recently allowed 100 per cent foreign direct investment
(FDI) under automatic route in the medical devices sector. Such investments
would also be exempted from other caveats such as the ‘non-compete clause’,
which is applicable for FDI in existing pharmaceutical manufacturing units.
Easing of norms for medical devices industry by creating a special carve-out in
the existing FDI policy in the pharma sector will encourage FDI inflows.
This comes at a time when manufacturers in the country are
facing challenges like import and export related issues, inverted duty status,
Free Trade Agreement (FTA) etc.More than Rs 20,000 crore medical device market
in India is highly unregulated and unorganised. Besides this, 10 per cent
standard duty and 12 per cent excise or countervailing duty add to the cost
which has posed a major burden on the manufacturers. There are 10 major
international players and around eight local players in the highly unorganised
and unregulated market.
Quality has also taken a beating as manufacturers from
outside India might dump sub-standard products as there is no regulation in
place. Products are often being labeled with a high price due to lack of any
regulation in terms of pricing as most of the medical devices have not been
notified by the government under a separate set of rules.
Admits an official from the Union Health Ministry, “There is
an urgent need for separate rules for medical devices which is therefore being
proposed in the new amended draft bill on Drugs and Cosmetics Act to be tabled
in the budget session of the parliament to give the much required boost to the
sector.
Alarmed by unusual spikes in prices of medical devices like
cardiac stents and drug-eluting stents, the pricing regulator National
Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has also sought pricing data from
manufacturers, importers and distributors of these devices. For monitoring of
price movement of notified medical devices as drugs under DPCO, 2013, NPPA has
asked the manufacturers and importers of medical devices in the country to
urgently produce a slew of documents to examine the extend of price variations
of medical devices in the domestic market. It has also been reminded the
companies that since such medical devices are under non-scheduled drug category,
their prices can be increased only up to 10 per cent of MRP annually. Those who
have charged beyond this have to reduce it to the level of 10 per cent of MRP
for the next 12 months.
“In this regard it has been decided to seek the following
information/documents in order to examine price variation, if any, in respect of
notified medical device manufactured/imported/marketed by the company”, the NPPA
said.
The NPPA has issued letters to all concerned
manufacturers/importers including Abbott Healthcare, Boston Scientific India,
Zimmer India, Edwards Life Sciences, Johnson & Johnson, India Medtronic
Corporate, B Braun Medical India, 3M India, Harsoria Healthcare and Roche
Products India.
Further, Para 25 of DPCO, 2013 provides that every
manufacturer /importer shall issue a price list and supplementary price list in
Form V to the dealer, State Drugs Controller and the Government from time to
time.
Industry perspective
The MedTech industry has welcomed the proposed Drugs and
Cosmetics (Amendment) Bill especially as it recognizes medical devices as
distinct from drugs/ pharmaceuticals. Further, it is important that the Bill and
the subsequent Rules to be framed incorporate regulations that are harmonised
with international best practices such as the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) and International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF).
This effort would help medical device manufacturers achieve the highest
standards of safety and efficacy, and also allow indigenous industry to prosper
and become globally competitive.
Some category of products need more focus in terms of
regulations and quality assurance. A case in point being that Drug Eluting Stent
(DES) meant for cardiac disorder is notified but Cerebral Shunt meant for
neurological disorders is not notified.
Says Sanjay Banerjee, Regional Managing Director, South Asia,
Zimmer, “Risk management is a process for identifying, evaluating and mitigating
risk. For medical devices, this means product safety, including risks associated
with harm to people and damage to property or the environment. Risk management
is an integral part of medical device design and development, production
processes and evaluation of field experience.
The Indian regulatory system needs to adopt a risk-based
approach to the regulation of medical devices, to ensure that Indian patients
have timely access to the safest medical technology.”
The current regulatory practices for medical devices in India
are ad-hoc and were issued in a knee-jerk manner in response to the Honourable
Supreme Court judgement in 2005. While several efforts have been made to
streamline the registration process, the genesis of the list of fourteen
notified medical devices remains questionable. A risk-based classification for
medical devices, along the lines of harmonized international best practices is
the need of the hour.
“There is a need for incremental innovation in the medical
device segment to differentiate them in terms of pricing and to meet varied
demands of the Indian healthcare system. Medical device innovation need not only
restrict to the invention of new devices but also to adjustments to, or
incremental improvements of, existing devices and clinical practices. It can
also denote efforts to adapt devices designed for use in one setting, such as a
modern high-tech hospital, to be used in another setting, such as a patient’s
home or at a mobile clinic or primary health centre,” Banerjee added.
Typically, medical devices are developed through continuous
innovation and iterative improvements and have short product life cycles. In the
Indian setting, MedTech Industry and Academia need to participate in active
collaborative research and development, which encourages businesses and
researchers to work together on innovative projects in select areas of
therapy–from which successful incremental innovative products and services can
emerge, contributing to societal welfare and also economic gain.
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