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Imran Khan opens first local cardiac stent manufacturing facility

Islamabad - Local production of stent will significantly reduce treatment cost in Pakistan

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday inaugurated the first facility in the country that will locally manufacture cardiac stents.

The facility - N-Ovative Health Technologies - set up at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad has started mass production of cardiac stents and angioplasty balloon catheters at affordable prices.

Pakistan has now become one of the 18 countries in the world and the second Muslim nation - after Turkey - producing cardiac stents locally.

A cardiac stent is used to treat narrowed or blocked coronary arteries. It can also be used to improve blood flow immediately following a heart attack.

Speaking on the occasion, the prime minister said the step would significantly reduce expenditures on treatment of heart diseases besides saving foreign exchange.

He lauded the efforts of the NUST team for leading the country not only in engineering sciences but also in innovations in the field of medical health sciences.
"You saved our foreign exchange [reserves] and gave us the opportunity to provide treatment to more poor patients," Khan told the gathering.

Addressing the ceremony earlier, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said Pakistan is heading from an import-based economy to a manufacturing-based economy under the leadership of Imran Khan.
He added that the N-Ovative Health Technology facility is an important milestone in the field of health.

"Another big step by Pakistan in medical technology," Fawad Chaudhry said in a tweet earlier Friday.
"Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the manufacturing of heart stents in NUST Science Park. These stents are up to European standards. As a result of this facility, Pakistan has become one of the few countries in the world to have the medical technology to make stents," the minister added.