The government today extended for a year the cap on prices for knee implants, ranging from Rs 54,000 to Rs 1.14 lakh.
 

Providing relief to patients going for knee implants, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has extended the ceiling prices till August 2019."The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, NPPA, hereby decided that applicability of the ceiling prices fixed for orthopaedic knee implants dated 16-Aug-2017 shall be extended for a period of another one year," said a notification.

In August last year, the government had capped prices of knee implants at a significantly lower rate than the market rates. As part of the initiative, NPPA had capped the price of widely used Cromium Cobalt knee implants at Rs 54,720. Prior to that, it used to cost between Rs 1.58 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh.

This particular type of knee implant has around 80 per cent market share. The new MRP of special metal titanium and oxidised zirconium was fixed at Rs 76,600 plus GST, 69 per cent lower than an average rate of Rs 2,49,251 earlier. High flexibility implant was fixed at Rs 56,490 plus GST, 69 per cent lower than average MRP of Rs 1,81,728 earlier. Special metal and high flexibility knee implants account for another 17 per cent of the market.