Edwards Lifesciences || Post-budget comment from Director Government Affairs

“We welcome the increased capital expenditure from 5.54 L Cr. to 7.5 L Cr. With effective grant-in to the states, the capital expenditure can increase to 10.68 L Cr. We expect a good part of it to be spent on building healthcare infrastructure, as per the aspirations of National Infrastructure pipeline - of building 73 state-of-the-art hospitals, tertiary hospitals in every district, secondary hospitals in every sub-division and primary healthcare and diagnostic centers at block levels. Enhanced expenditure on improving logistics under Gati-Shakti will improve transportation infrastructure which will also benefit the last mile deliverables of medical technologies.

Perhaps the biggest gain for healthcare medical technologies will be derived from the launch of Ayushman Bharat Digital health mission which will help unbiased patient data collection and utilization, in anonymous form, which will help identify unmet patient needs, improve patient care and help in future R&D endeavors, as India has a vast genetic pool of patients. We also note the emphasis made on mental health which we see as a positive development.

On Government Public Procurement, we see the adoption of Transparent Quality criteria, 75 % of mandatory payments of running bills, usage of surety bonds instead of bank guarantee and usage of e-bills. We sincerely hope the same policy will be extended to the procurement of medical technologies as well – which will lead to much-needed value-based-procurement in healthcare and will further improve patient outcome and ease of doing business. Moreover, we see efforts for the adoption of a Circular Economy with active public policies on regulation – this may help Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities aspirational hospitals in gaining refurbished medical devices.

On direct taxation and duties, we see that while duties and cess is reduced for some devices, the same is increased for Dialyzers and X-rays and hearing devices. We request a reconsideration on this front taking into consideration patient affordability. We also look forward to the abolishment of Health cess Ad Valorem on Medical Devices for all devices for increasing affordability especially given that 86 % devices are imported.”

Mr. Arnab Basumallik, Director – Government Affairs, Edwards Lifesciences India Pvt. Ltd