India Pharma Outlook Team | Wednesday, 16 September 2026
Hospital consumables now stand next in line for NPPA price control as regulators face mounting evidence of extreme markups that burden patients.
Maharashtra FDA commissioner Tukaram Mundhe drives this push by urging the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority to cap trade margins or place essential device categories under structured price monitoring.
His call follows a state survey that exposes private hospitals charging patients thousands of percent above procurement costs on routine surgical items.
Industry bodies and officials from other states amplify the demand, signaling that hospital consumables could soon enter the NPPA’s regulatory net to restore fairness in healthcare pricing.
The Maharashtra State Price Monitoring Resource Unit examined private hospital invoices across four consumable categories. It later uncovered wide disparities between trade procurement costs and the prices hospitals bill patients. These surgical items and medical devices currently sit outside the ceiling-price mechanism of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013.
Medical Consumable | Hospital Purchase Price | Patient Billing Price |
Standard IV infusion set | Rs 11.05 | Rs 325 |
Other IV infusion set | Rs 11.50 | Rs 252 |
10 ml syringe | Rs 6.75 | Rs 57.20 |
Hypodermic needle | Around Rs 1 | Rs 3.30 |
Adult nebulizer mask kit | Rs 40 | Rs 715 |
Another nebulizer mask kit | Rs 45 | Rs 652 |
IV cannula extension line | Rs 22.50 | Rs 424 |
Balloon catheter | Rs 29.41 | Rs 310 |
Bacterial-viral HEPA filter | Rs 50.68 | Rs 473 |
Mundhe submitted these findings and stressed that healthcare pricing must remain transparent, rational and fair. He insisted that information asymmetry must never create avoidable financial burden for patients.
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The Association of Indian Medical Device Industry, which represents 1,000 member companies, fully backs Mundhe’s call. AiMeD urges regulators and policymakers to institute structured price monitoring and margin rationalization. The association recommends pilot studies based on its proposals so evidence guides policy.
AiMeD states that patients deserve fair prices, not inflated margins, and that India deserves a medical device ecosystem that stays affordable, ethical and globally competitive. The current structure leaves patients unable to bargain or choose devices and therefore vulnerable to inflated MRPs.
FDA commissioners in Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu raise parallel concerns about hospital consumable pricing. Their interventions add geographic weight to Mundhe’s letter and increase the likelihood that the NPPA and the Department of Pharmaceuticals will examine the issue closely.
India’s medical devices market stands at around USD 18 billion according to government estimates. Routine consumables form a significant share of daily clinical use, so any regulatory step would affect a large volume of patient transactions.
Mundhe has already placed the survey before the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the NPPA. He seeks rationalization of trade margins, structured price monitoring and, where warranted, an effective price regulation framework for essential medical devices.
The combination of documented markups, industry endorsement and multi-state concern now positions hospital consumables as the next potential target for NPPA price control. Whether the authority moves to formal caps or limited monitoring remains the open question, yet the momentum for action has clearly intensified.
