Mumbai: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Wednesday that a survey it conducted of “a sizeable number of hospitals” in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has revealed that these hospitals have been charging “exorbitant margins on consumables,” the “margins” being the difference in the trade price and the MRP of the medical products. FDA commissioner Tukaram Mundhe said the survey showed an IV infusion set “with a trade price of Rs 11.05 carrying a printed Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of Rs 325, a markup of 2,841%.”
FDA joint commissioner (drug) Ganesh Rokade said inspectors looked at inpatient medical devices and found vast price margins. The administration has requested a set of guidelines from the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on how much margin is permissible between a product’s procurement price for the hospital and its sale price to the patient.
The statement from the regulator on a request to the NPPA came after Mundhe put up a post on X on the prices of hospital consumables.
Mundhe said in his post, “A patient admitted for care has no way of knowing whether the price on a medical consumable reflects its actual cost or a markup fixed long before it ever reached the ward. That gap in information is, at its core, a public health issue.”
Further, after mentioning the prices of IV sets, he stated, “A syringe procured at Rs 6.75 carried an MRP of Rs 57.20.
A catheter procured at Rs 29.41 carried an MRP of Rs 310. These are not elective purchases; patients cannot compare prices, seek alternatives, or question a number printed on a box while receiving care.”
Mundhe also noted that the MRP itself is often fixed upstream by manufacturers and distributors, disconnected from the trade price by a wide, unexplained margin. “A review of these findings and clear guidelines on the permissible gap between the trade procurement price and declared MRP have been recommended to the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the NPPA,” Mundhe said.
