(Yicai Global) Nov. 5 -- Lepu Medical Technology saw its share price tank by as much as 7 percent this morning as news broke that the price for coronary stents, one of the Chinese hi-tech medical device maker’s main products, has been slashed to a fraction of its current pricing through a government bulk-buy program.

The Beijing-based firm [SHE:300003] was trading down 4.87 percent as of CNY29.67 (USD4.46) as of 1.45 p.m. China time. It had earlier fallen to CNY29.04.

The average price of the ten winning bids for coronary stents in the centralized procurement program came in at CNY700 (USD105), state broadcaster CCTV reported today. A heart stent usually costs around CNY13,000 (USD2,000).

Lepu Medical was one of the nine manufacturers who submitted the winning bids but its pricing is not yet known, the report said.

Lepu Medical’s stock has lost more than a third of its value since July. This is largely due to the centralized procurement program, which aims to cut the cost of generic and patented medicines and apparatus through economy-of-scale buying, thereby easing the financial burden on patients.

Stents are the main interventional procedure used in keep the arteries open in the treatment of coronary heart disease. China treated around one million such patients last year, using about 1.5 million stents at a cost of CNY15 billion (USD2.3 billion). This accounted for one-tenth of all high-priced medical consumables used in the country.

Editor: Kim Taylor