SMT secures Italian government order for 40000 drug-eluting stents

Mumbai: SMT (Sahajanand Medical Technologies Pvt Ltd) has won the first-ever national tender for a drug-eluting stent. The selection was made through an open tender with a rigorous focus on quality in terms of superior technology and clinical trial.

SMT through its partner has signed an agreement with the Italian Government national purchase entity 'CONSIP' (Consip spa is a society of Economy & Finance Ministry aimed to manage all the purchase orders for public administrations in Italy) to deliver up to 40,000 of its biodegradable polymer-coated DES 'Supraflex' stents by 2022.

Eight major medical device companies had qualified to participate and based on the rating for advanced product features and clinical trial data, the committee selected SMT as the winner. Supraflex has come at the top of the merit list in the tender because of its excellent clinical data and robust record of safety and efficacy.

Speaking about the win, Gaurav Goel, Head of Western Europe, SMT said, "The tender win in Italy is the validation of our world-class quality standards, best-in-class product performance and the clinical data of SMT DES. This achievement follows the pervious tender wins in regions like Emilia Romagna and Sicily amongst others. SMT has been steadily gaining market share in Europe and is being recognized as a top tier player in the DES market."

Supraflex family, a cardiac drug-eluting stent designed and manufactured in India is not only proved to be at par in safety as compared to Abbott's Xience* but fared numerically better in efficacy in an investigator-initiated multicenter European randomized controlled study with more than 1400 patients, called 'TALENT'. The findings of the TALENT trial were published in Lancet, the world's leading medical journal.

Gennaro Broya de Lucia, General Manager of EUKON asserts that "SMT has grown as a first-tier player in the Italian market in a very short time frame. Our combined efforts are giving good results. We have to consider this win as a shift in the interventional cardiology paradigm. Our goal will be to keep investing and working to attract more and more professionals to join hands in SMT's mission to 'save millions'."

The market size for stents in Italy is approximately 250,000 DES, annually.

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