Indian companies manufacturing stents are not just ensuring high quality, but nearly half of the 9 firms are also exporting to 76 countries with estimated earnings of $32 million.
Further, the competition they brought to the market is forcing international companies to slash the rates of their stents in the domestic market. The indigenous stents for helping heart patients are reaching South America, South East Asia and countries across Europe.
At the last Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) meeting there was appreciation for Indian stents being very effective in diabetics. TCT is a global educational meet for interventional cardiologists. The stent pricing in the country will be standardized once it’s listed as an essential drug by the government and MRP is fixed.
These were some of the significant observations made at the National Intervention Council — a forum for practitioners of interventional cardiology & the interventional arm of the Cardiology Society of India being held in Hyderabad.
Heart attacks
An alarming trend in the pattern of heart attacks shows the increasing numbers in the young, especially those below the age of 40 years. This is peculiar to India and nowhere in the world is it seen. At least 10 per cent of the patients undergoing angioplasty — 3.75 lakh angioplasties performed during 2014-15 — are below 40 years, The maximum incidence and usage is in the age group 40 to 70 years (75 per cent) and 15 per cent above 70 years, according to the NIC data released at the event.
The Chairman, NIC 2016, N N Khanna commented that a total of 4.75 lakh stents were used during 2014-15. Of these 95 per cent were drug eluting stents. The usage of stents is growing rapidly, up by over one lakh compared to the previous year. About 23 per cent of angioplasties were done under the government insurance scheme being sponsored by various state governments and was up from 19 per cent in the previous year.
India is quickly adopting latest technology, the number of experts trained to use it is increasing and complications and side effects are declining.
Shiv Kumar, Organising Secretary, said the State Government support to cover medical expenses for the poor has led to increasing use of drug eluting stents and health benefits. Earlier, due to their economical status the poor were opting for bare metal stents, which led to side effects and complications.
The NIC Data is data on cardiac problems collated from 630 centres in the country - almost 75 per cent of the treating centres, and is comparable with what is available in a country like US. This data can be used to benchmark in our country and collaborate with USA for solutions, he added.