Licenses Of Killer Syrup Maker Revoked
The syrup, manufactured by Bajaj Formulations, Roorkee (Uttarakhand), contains the prohibited combination Chlorpheniramine Maleate + Phenylephrine Hydrochloride and did not carry the mandatory warning — “Not to be used in children below 4 years of age.”
Chennai: Drug manufacturing licences of Sresan Pharmaceutical Company, the makers of Coldrif cough syrup that had claimed more than a score of lives in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, were cancelled by the Tamil Nadu Drugs Control department that also closed down the company in Chennai completely on Monday, besides monitoring the functioning of all pharmaceutical companies in the State.
The company that had been facing the music since the drug control department received an alert from its Madhya Pradesh counterpart on September 4 on its cough syrup suspectedly causing the death of children, also came under the radar of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday when its sleuths conducted raids on seven properties linked to the company owner, 75-year-old S Ranganathan, who was arrested in Chennai a few days back.
The ED also raided the residences of some senior officials of the State Drug Control Department that had launched investigations into the varied charges of Coldrif cough syrup causing the deaths of children and had also taken a slew of actions. One of them was the arrest of Ranganathan in Chennai by the Special Investigation Team from Madhya Pradesh with the help of Tamil Nadu Police.
A case was also filed with the Sunguvarchatram police station as laboratory tests revealed that a toxic chemical Diethylene Glycol (DEG) was present in the samples to the extent of 48.6 percent. The State government after starting the crackdown on the company had even alerted States like Odisha and Puducherry, to which the Coldrif syrup had been dispatched by the company.
All through its probe into the case, the State government had kept the Drugs Controller General of India, the Deputy Drugs Controller of South Zone and also the Madhya Pradesh Drugs Control department of the developments and had even issued the stop production order on October 3 itself.
Among the action taken on the case was the suspension of two senior drug inspectors of Kanchipuram for negligence in not carrying out inspections in the factory and on Monday all drug manufacturing licences were cancelled. The company has been operating since 2011 without any hitch despite several instances of violations in safety norms and deficiencies in infrastructure.