New Delhi: Drug price regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority(NPPA) has started issuing recovery and pre-prosecution notices to hospitals for non-compliance with its guidelines on stents pricing.

The regulator has also directed hospitals to follow all instructions issued so far by it with regard to pricing of coronary stents.

"NPPA is issuing show cause notices to management of hospitals, nursing homes, institutions for recovery of overcharged amount, along with pre prosecution notices under Essential Commodities Act, 1955 to those hospitals, nursing homes, institutions which have not abided by the instructions of NPPA so far," the regulator said in a notification today.

Between February 14 to March 15 this year, the NPPA has found violations in 40 health institutions.

In February, NPPA had brought stents under price control and capped ceiling price of coronary stents at Rs 7,260 for bare metal variety and Rs 29,600 for drug-eluting ones.

The corresponding average MRPs before the price control stood at Rs 45,100 and Rs 1.21 lakh respectively.

Last month, NPPA increased price of stents by around 2 per cent after taking into account wholesale price index.