Closed pharma unit found making drugs

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, March 15

Kala Amb-based pharmaceutical company — Vardhman Pharma — having no valid manufacturing licence since 2009 was found manufacturing spurious human and veterinary drugs.

A raid at the unit by officials of the Drug Control Administration (DCA) on Saturday night led to the revelation. Monthly power bills of about Rs 10,000 were also recovered from there.

Officials swung into action after several drugs manufactured by it were declared substandard in the monthly drug alerts issued by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation in February and March.

Though the unit was closed for operations, a board highlighting vacancies was seen hanging outside its gate. The unit has been sealed by the officials after the raid and police personnel have been deployed there.

Drug Controller Navneet Marwaha, who led the raid, confirmed that packaging material of various firms like Phoenix Pharma, whose place of manufacturing was amiss, was recovered apart from the labels of Saibliss Pharma and Aims International.

While there was no firm registered as Aims International, spurious drugs manufactured by it had been sold to Arunachal Pradesh. Chloro-250 tablets and V-Mox-500 capsules manufactured by the fake firm were declared substandard in Arunachal recently.

The officials also recovered cipro-500 tablets manufactured by Vardhman Pharma, bearing batch no 2020, which had been declared substandard in January. A question mark has also been put on the drugs manufactured by another firm Saibliss Pharma in Kala Amb as its packaging material was recovered from the unit. Though its owner has denied it in writing, its role is under the DCA scanner.

The officials also found various salts and a huge quantity of calcium carbonate and its granules manufactured in the most unhygienic manner.

It is being suspected that the firm has used fake documents to supply drugs in Arunachal Pradesh as its suspended licence had not been reviewed.

All drugs bore the manufacturing date of March or January 2015 when the firm had no manufacturing licence. This is the second time that such nefarious operations have been detected in the firm.

The Drug Control Administration of Haryana also recovered 45 boxes of spurious drugs manufactured at Vardhman Pharma being loaded from a godown owned by someone in the Treasury Road area of Ambala yesterday.

The drugs bore the label of Saibliss Pharma, said Drug Controller of Haryana RK Singla. He said a case under relevant sections of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act had been registered as they had not procured any permission to sell or stock these drugs.

Navneet Marwaha said the matter was being taken up with the Drug Controller General of India for issuing nationwide alert against the pharma unit for spurious drug manufacture. The DCA of Arunachal Pradesh was also being informed about its nefarious operations.