Though the symposium on “Management of Expired Drugs’ conducted by the Industrial Pharmacy Division of Tamil Nadu IPA last week concluded without any consensus on how to effectively handle the growing quantum of expired medicines, the state director of drugs control administration, the chief guest of the symposium pointed out that the reason for the menace is the involvement of scrap merchants in dealing with expired drugs. He said that currently the scrap dealers are the main concern for the regulators.

He asked the members of the industry to do something concrete and worthwhile to allay the apprehensions of the public about the medicines they take. While maintaining that it is the responsibility of the manufacturers to maintain a Good Supply Chain, he said new guidelines in this regard would be announced by the government soon.

While admitting that the threat of expired medicines is still a live issue, M Bhaskaran, the director, said all the problems that emerged on expired drugs in the state were because of scrap dealers who have link with other states. But he reiterated that the expired drugs were not originating from Tamil Nadu.

“The scrap dealers are the menace. They have to be checked and the confidence of the public has to be restored. I have not at all expected the magnitude of the case would be this much”, a desperate Bhaskaran said while finding fault with some anti social elements for all the disrepute caused to the state.

To counter this menace, the drug control office in Chennai will shortly call a meeting of the clearing and forwarding agents to convey to them that it is their responsibility to send the time barred medicines to the manufactures for destroying. His office will also send letters to the wholesalers warning them to be cautious about taking back the expired stocks without keeping in the stores.

It would be made mandatory on every stakeholder of the industry that he is disposing of the expired drugs on time and it should not reach the consumer in anyway. Bhaskaran said, as per the information he received, the CB-CID, who is investigating the case, has so far arrested 39 persons in connection with the case and charged cases against 19. But regarding the CID raid in the houses of two officials of the drug control department, the director said nothing.

When some traders asked him whether this racket grew due to some ineffective enforcement system, the director did not have a convincing answer but advised them not to give expired drugs to the scrap dealers.

B Raj, president of Aspire Consultants, who was one of the speakers, said that a company incurs additional expenses for destruction of expired goods. However it is the duty of the licence holder to take responsibility of all the issues based on his products. The company management has to manage the risk through identification, evaluation and reduction.

Kishore Kar, director – sales, Pharma Secure, New Delhi, who evolved SMS based tracking solution for expired drugs, made his presentation in the meeting.

R Sreenivasan, the founder president of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association said the industry in Tamil Nadu needs a Good Trading Practices and it has to improve the present supply chain management He said in Tamil Nadu alone drugs worth about Rs 70 crore are coming back from the market every year and it is a loss to the industry and also to the state exchequer.