NPPA takes cognisance of ‘leaked’ documents saying Dr Ashok Seth bought shares from a Singapore company that supplied stents to the hospital chain.
New Delhi: The ‘Paradise Papers’ have attracted the scrutiny of an unlikely regulator — the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). The NPPA has taken cognisance of the ‘leaked’ documents saying that Chairman of Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, Dr Ashok Seth, bought shares from a Singapore-based company that also supplied coronary stents to the hospital chain.
The shares were reportedly encashed later by Seth and the coronary stents were used at the hospital, sparking allegations of a possible conflict of interest.
The NPPA is now preparing to write to the company, Biosensors International Group Ltd, seeking all details of the stents it is supplying to India.
“We will be writing to this company enquiring about its stents and the pricing involved as is the norm for all other coronary stent manufacturers. So far, it (the company) is not in our database of stent manufacturers. This company has not submitted any data to us. So there is a need to seek all these details,” NPPA chairman Bhupendra Singh told ThePrint.
While the NPPA does not have any control over hospitals, it is the regulator for all pharmaceutical products and medical devices. It has put out a detailed proforma that every cardiac stent manufacturer has to submit to NPPA.
The drug price regulator recently made headlines with its orders capping the price of cardiac stents and knee implants in a bid to check prohibitive margins.
While every major coronary stent manufacturer supplying to India figures in the NPPA list, there is no record for Biosensors. Neither has it submitted the data it is required to under NPPA guidelines. It also does not appear to have an India office unlike most other stent manufacturers.
A spokesperson from Dr Ashok Seth’s office at Fortis told ThePrint that the hospital had used no more than seven coronary stents imported from Biosensors. The last stent from the company to be used in a coronary procedure at the hospital was in 2013.
Dr Nandakishore Dukkipati, a member of the Medical Council of India, said that in case the council receives any complaint in this regard, it will be taken up with the ethics committee.
Meanwhile, the Fortis Group stood by its Chairman.
“Dr Ashok Seth is an eminent cardiologist and a valuable member of Fortis organisation. We believe that he has always acted in the best interest of the patients and has practised in accordance with the law and commonly accepted medical guidelines,” a spokesperson of Fortis Healthcare told ThePrint. “We do not see a conflict of interest or lack of ethics as he neither promoted the stents nor influenced any decision process regarding purchase of such stents.”
Rajiv Seth, founder of the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry, also said that there was not much to prove unethical conduct on the part of Seth.
“If he was just promoting the stents, he has done nothing wrong. It would be unethical if he was actively promoting these products in his medical profession. But if he has made some money out of buying some shares in a company, I don’t think it is unethical,” he said.