M Venkat Reddy, Joint Director, is officiating as Director FAC (full additional charge) of the Drug Control Administration, Andhra Pradesh, following the retirement of D Hanumantha Rao recently. The government has issued orders giving Venkat Reddy the powers of licencing authority and controlling authority of DCA. Hanumantha Rao retired from service after serving the DCA for over 27 years.
Venkat Reddy joined DCA in 1975 as Drugs Inspector and then rose to the position of Asst. Director, Dy Director and Joint Director. Reddy is presently heading the Task Force constituted by the Health Minister, Dr Kodela Sivaprasada Rao, and was responsible for conducting raids throughout the state and effecting seizure of spurious and substandard drugs.
Speaking to Pharmabiz.com, the new Director said the officers under the Task Force had seized five spurious drugs recently. Giving details of the seizures, he said Sestil-FM anti- diarrhoeal suspension, manufactured by Endoven Pharmaceuticals Private Ltd, Hyderabad, was seized from shops in Vijayawada, Guntur and Karimnagar. The other seizures included Ocid-20 capsules at Eluru. The capsules were marketed as manufactured by Cadila Healthcare. Dilzem-30 tablets, marketed as manufactured by Torrent Pharma in Maharashtra; Ciprobid-500 manufactured by Zydus Healthcare Ltd, Ahmedabad. All the drugs seized were either spurious or substandard.
The officers also found four Ayurvedic drugs containing allopathic drugs like Sildenafil Citrate/ Betamethasane. They found drugs marked as "Orissa Govt supply,' 'AP Govt supply', 'Karnataka Govt supply,' 'TN Govt supply,' and 'CGS, not for sale' packs from four different places in the state.
The officers also seized stocks from five unqualified doctors and 'Physicians samples' from three medical shops. The Task Force also detected unlicensed medical shops selling the drugs.
Seizures were effected at two manufacturing units running without licences in Hyderabad and Vijayawada. The units were Deepa Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, Hyderabad, and Fizikem Labs, Vijayawada.
Venkat Reddy said the Task Force organized raids on 507 medical shops throughout the state and detected sale of habit-forming Schedule-H drugs'. The raid was organised to curb the menace of misuse of drugs and sale of drugs in the absence of qualified persons.
In order to implement the slogan of the Health Minister, "More blood and pure blood, " the officers inspected 70 blood banks throughout the state. The department was also planning to organize blood donation camps, while continuing the vigil on the blood banks. Most of the blood banks inspected had violated the guidelines and had been given notice.
During the raids, under the overall supervision of P Anantansayanam Reddy, Additional Director-General of DCA and Copyright, 28 drugs were found which violated the DMRO (Drugs, Magic Remedies Objectionable Advertisement) Act, detected four drugs which violated the price control order and banned combinations worth several lakhs and destroyed them.
The Task Force had cancelled the licences of two medical shops for involvement in the sale of spurious drugs at Vijayawada and Narsaraopet. The licences of six medical shops were cancelled at Narsaraopet earlier, Venkat Reddy said.