Nagpur police recently booked a distributor of a reputed pharmaceutical company for sending fake emails to place orders with the company for medicines in violation of Information Technology Act, 2000. The distributor also used to stock medicine without a retail license in a drug store in violation of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
The drug distributor used to send fake emails to get the orders of medicines from the company in the name of supplying it to government hospitals and stocked drugs worth Rs.18 lakh at a drug retail store in Nagpur.
The supplier is a reputed Indian pharmaceutical company and drugs were supposed to be supplied to the hospitals at discounted rates as per the agreement between the supplier and the hospitals.
Nagpur police nabbed the drug distributor based on a tip-off from an employee working for the pharmaceutical company who also used to monitor the supplies.
The distributor had sent sent fake emails to the company between March and June this year in getting the orders of the drugs and then stocking it probably with the motive of selling it at higher prices. Nagpur police is however investigating the matter.
According to officials, the drug dealing done over email has attracted penalties under the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 and the accused has also been booked under the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 and relevant sections of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
Unlike the case detected in Nagpur, a racket involving a prominent multinational company bypassing retail chemists and selling drugs directly to the patients with the help of medical representatives in Mumbai was also detected in the past. This came to light when Maharashtra Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) seized several insulin injections from a shop based in Mumbai.
Sources said that there are MNCs which identify reputed physicians treating lifestyle and other chronic diseases and collect data of patients spending heavily on medicines for these diseases. Medical representatives of the companies then contact these high spending patients and supply medicines directly to them.
According to FDA officials, a nexus between doctors and medical representatives (MR) is selling large quantities of medicines to patients without prescriptions. Under the arrangement, MRs procure the medicines from wholesalers and sell them to patients at a discounted rate. The problem with this type of sale is that there is absolutely no record keeping.
City based chemists had carried 5 such operations in Mumbai and Pune to detect such malpractices and found that pharma companies have colluded with physicians to supply medicines having MRP of Rs.500 to consumers. In one such case, medicine stock worth of Rs.20,000 was found in a clinic.
This comes close on the heels of recent Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) circular to all the state drug regulators to keep a check on online sale of prescription medicines.