In a major offensive against a manufacturer and a bulk supplier of counterfeit drug 'Amoxil', a popular international brand of amoxicillin capsules, in Ahmedabad and Mehsana last month, the Food & Drugs Control Administration (FDCA) of Gujarat landed on a Mumbai-based firm exporting huge quantities of counterfeit medicines with impunity.
According to FDCA commissioner S.P. Adeshra, there are several ports from where the medicines are exported but Mumbai happened to be the biggest of them. Once exported, it becomes too difficult to nab such unscrupulous people.
Acting on a tip off, Adeshra directed his sleuths led by deputy commissioner (intelligence) J. D. Naicker for a simultaneously crack down at three different places - the manufacturing and office premises of M/s Silver Pharmachem (Guj) Pvt Ltd at Rajpur (near Mehsana) and at Sarkhej (outskirts of Ahmedabad) and at the godown of M/s Espee Pharmachem.
Naicker told Pharmabiz.com that the inspectors recovered and seized 176 kg of aluminium foils used to pack various popular national and international brands of medicines from the factory at Rajpur. The foils were enough to pack two lakh capsules, each costing Rs 5-6 in the Indian market and much higher in the international market. They also seized about 700 capsules in packs.
Amoxil is manufactured in India by M/s Medreich Sterilab Limited of Bangalore. Counterfeit drugs of other popular international brands of reputed companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Sharp , Teva, etc were also seized from the factory.
Medreich informed that counterfeit Amoxil 500 capsules manufactured by Silver Pharmachem were spurious. A layman might be misguided by the similarity between the designs on aluminium foil of the original and counterfeit drugs, which a layman might not distinguish but not sleuths.
Naicker said that Silver Pharmachem did not hold any valid licence or product permission to manufacture these drugs. The managing director of firm Udayan Choksi, who was remanded to police custody on February 15 for ten days, confessed that he used to manufacture such medicines on getting order from Sanjay S. Shah, director of Espee Pharmachem.
Choksi confessed that Shah, a wholesale drug supplier, used to supply all active and inactive raw materials, printing and packaging materials, dies, punches and machine parts.
FDCA inspectors seized nearly 960,000 tablets under the brand name of 'Cold Flu' inscribed in Russian language, valued at Rs 4.5 lakh and meant for export from the Espee Pharmachem premises. Sanjay Shah could not produce any genuine invoice, but he told the inspectors that Dilip Muchhala of M/s Unity Pharma of Mumbai supplied him these tablets just for storing on behalf of Muchhala.
The chief executive of Medreich Sterilab told FDCA officials that the clandestine manufacturing of counterfeit and spurious drugs could be a part of global racket to take advantage of 'international brands' whose quality is usually not challenged. And, once exported, it becomes very difficult to nab the guilty.
While the case has been handed over to the Crime Branch, the Deputy Drugs Controller General (India), West Zone, Mumbai, and the Foods & Drugs Administration of Maharashtra have also been informed about the developments for further investigation.
In an earlier first-ever case of its kind, FDCA Gujarat had detained a counterfeit drug dealer Nailesh Naranbhai Patel of Napad in Anand taluka (central Gujarat) under the Prevention of Anti-Social Act (PASA). He used to procure or steal injection vials with expiry dates, fill them with virtually no ingredient and replace the old labels with that of life saving drugs. The PASA Board has confirmed the detention and Patel is now in the Baroda Central Jail.