Two months later, Maiden Pharma yet to be blacklisted

Tribune News Service

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Chandigarh, January 14

A total of 21 batches of Albendazole tablets of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, Sonepat, have failed the quality test, but even as more than two months have passed, Haryana Medical Services Corporation Limited (HMSCL) is yet to blacklist the firm. After the tablets failed in the “dissolution test parameter of IP (Indian Pharmacopoeia) 2018” at a private-empanelled laboratory, the HMSCL is awaiting the test results of the Haryana Government lab in Chandigarh for further action.

Sources said the State Drug Laboratory had told the Food and Drug Administration, Haryana, that it did not have the facility to carry out the dissolution test. The State Drug Controller has now informed the HMSCL about the government lab’s incapability to test the tablets. As per the HMSCL policy, available on its website, for more than two instances of quality failure, the contract will be cancelled and the “firm will be debarred for three years from participating in the tendering process for that particular item”. And “if more than three products of a firm are debarred/ blacklisted, the firm will not be eligible to participate in the tendering process of Haryana for the next three years for any item”.

The HMSCL had procured the Albendazole tablets for government hospitals and dispensaries. These tablets are given for the treatment of parasitic worm infections. The tablet batches have the manufacturing date of August or September 2022 and the expiry date of August 2024. The Tribune broke the story on tablets failing the quality test on November 1 and the issuance of a show-cause notice to the firm on November 5.

Earlier, the HMSCL blocked purchase orders from Maiden Pharmaceuticals, besides withdrawing medicines procured from it last year.

Maiden Pharmaceuticals is also linked to four syrups that were found to contain unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol as contaminants and have allegedly led to the death of more than 66 children in Gambia.

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