At least 15,000 hospitals have so far been empanelled under the scheme out of which, 15 per cent are private hospitals, Indu Bhushan, said, urging more healthcare establishments to join the movement.

The US FDA recently gave green signal to market IDx-DR, a medical device to detect diabetic retinopathy, a disease in which high blood sugar damages blood vessels in the retina of eyes and leads to the vision loss.

Even as US President Donald Trump wants United States Trade Representative (USTR) to step pressure on the country's trade partners to provide pricing freedom for US based medical device companies, local industry lobby group Association of Indian Manufacturers of Medical Devices (AIMED) has urged India to reduce reliance on imported medical devices.

National drug pricing regulator NPPA has said medical devices makers and importers are being given the last opportunity to submit data regarding price movement of 19 medical devices notified as drugs by March 15, 2018.

Each year during pre-Budget time, the Indian healthcare industry points to the one statistic that refuses to change: government spending on healthcare stays put at around one per cent of the GDP.

Local medical devices makers who  are facing a tough run, as lack of regulations, government support, tax structure and price control are squeezing their margins and growth, besides competition from MNCs.

Indian medical device manufacturers  have accused the government of favouring foreign multinational medical technology companies by imposing restrictive conditions in procurement tenders.

The Medical Technology Association of India (MTaI), a representative body of the domestic arm of global medical device makers, has asked the drug price regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to review its decision to cap the prices of knee implants.

NPPA Chairman Bhupendra Singh said that a similar exercise to identify the price patterns prevailing in medical device sector is underway.

MTaI argued that knee replacement surgery is not a life-threatening procedure but an elective surgery as the patient is free to choose to go for it or go for alternate therapies.

In a letter sent to the Indian ambassador to Washington last month, 18 members of Congress said they were \"troubled\" by the price cap, warning that it could deter firms from launching new medical products in India.

The stents that Abbott and Medtronic wanted to discontinue had a price tag of Rs 1,00,000-plus.

India's cardiac stent market was certainly the last thing on Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's mind when she said that the restrictive visa regime being planned by the US can have an (adverse) impact on US companies operating in India.

\"The government must not undercut the market dynamics. The control of stent prices in the manner it has been done, with a shocking reduction of prices may unfavourably skew the market for the patient and will affect adversely the business environment\", an MTAI statement said.

In a move to curtail the pricing freedom of stent makers, India has decided to cap the maximum retail price (MRP) of coronary stents sold in the country.