Bengaluru: U.T. Khader Orders Action Against 24 Pharma Traders in Spurious Drugs Case

Bengaluru: Acting on a raid on an unlicensed medicine repackaging and relabelling unit clandestinely run from a farmhouse in Kurubarakeranahalli in Bidadi of Bengaluru South district about a month back by officials attached to Food Safety and Drug Administration, licences of 16 pharmaceutical distributors including wholesale and retailers were cancelled while licences of 8 others were suspended.

Of the total 24 pharmaceuticals either cancelled or suspended by officials concerned, as many as 22 of them are based in Bengaluru while Hubballi and Belagavi reported one each in the list of firms on which action has been initiated.

Following the detection of the clandestine spurious drugs unit, Minister of Health and Family Welfare U.T. Khader constituted a Special Investigation Team and the investigations into the spurious drugs case led to discovery of a syndicate procured low-cost generic drugs from other States and the procured drugs were repackaged with forged labels to resemble expensive life-saving medicines manufactured by multinational pharmaceutical companies.

The seized spurious drugs had non-functional Quick Response code to mislead the consumers.

Among the pharmaceuticals licence suspended include-M/s Pfizer Limited, Nelamangala in Bengaluru Rural, Med Pharma, Doddakammanahalli of Bengaluru, Surya Speciality Hospital in Bengaluru, Sagar Pharma, Tilaknagar in Bengaluru, Vivantha Pharmaceuticals, Jayanagar in Bengaluru, Maruthi Medicals, Vijayanagar in Bengaluru and Hi-5 Pharma, K.G. Halli of Bengaluru.

The licence to Viva Pharma of Belagavi has been suspended while N.S. Pharma based in Hubballi has been cancelled.

U.T. Khader lauded the work of SIT in dealing with the spurious drugs case and stated “We want to go to root level.” Adding, he said, “Once the SIT report is available, no one will be spared.”