Maharashtra FDA Flags Steep Markups on Hospital Consumables, Writes to Centre

Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Tukaram Munde has written to the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), recommending guidelines on the permissible gap between the trade procurement price and the declared maximum retail price of medical consumables.

The move follows a survey of hospital consumables in the State that threw up wide disparities between what providers pay and what patients are charged. An IV infusion set procured at ₹11.05 carried a printed MRP of ₹325 — a markup of 2,841%. A syringe with a trade price of ₹6.75 was labelled at ₹57.20, while a catheter procured at ₹29.41 carried an MRP of ₹310.

Mr. Munde described the pricing gap as a core public health issue, noting that 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 reached the ward. Because such purchases are not elective, patients cannot compare prices, seek alternatives or question the MRP while receiving treatment, he said.

The MRP, he added, is often fixed upstream by manufacturers and distributors and remains disconnected from the trade price by a wide, unexplained margin, leaving the party bearing the cost with the least information to evaluate it.

According to Mr. Munde, the regulatory gap is structural. Scheduled medicines are capped under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, but most medical devices and consumables fall outside its ambit, leaving both pricing and the information around it almost entirely unmonitored.

He said the review of the survey findings and clear guidelines on the permissible trade-to-MRP gap have been recommended to the Centre not only to close a pricing gap but also the information gap that patients face.