₹11 IV Set, ₹325 MRP: Hospital Consumables’ Massive Price Gap Under Scrutiny

A medical pricing debate has returned to focus after the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration flagged large gaps between the procurement cost and printed MRP of commonly used hospital consumables. An IV infusion set bought for around Rs 11 can carry an MRP of Rs 325, while a disposable syringe costing under Rs 7 may have a price tag of around Rs 60. The gap can be even wider for high-value devices such as pacemakers, heart valves and intraocular lenses, where MRPs may be 10 to 30 times the import landed price. Maharashtra FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe has called for clear guidelines on the permissible gap between trade procurement prices and declared MRPs. The issue has also drawn differing views from domestic and multinational medical-device industry bodies over trade-margin regulation.