Noida firm director arrested for selling spurious injections
CHANDIGARH: Haryana chief minister’s flying squad and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials on Wednesday arrested the director of a Noida-based firm, Heartland Pharmacy (OPC) Private Ltd, Kanishk Rajkumar for allegedly selling spurious intravenous injections. Police officials said Rajkumar, who was arrested from Sector 62, Noida, was remanded to police custody for two days by a Gurugram court.
Officials said that a foreign national, Ali has also been detained in a Mumbai hotel and is being brought to Gurugram by police and FDA officials.
The FDA officials had on April 21 arrested a Delhi resident for allegedly selling spurious drugs to a Panipat resident admitted to a Gurugram hospital.
State drugs controller Manmohan Taneja had said that a Panipat resident Rohit Kansal had given a complaint that vials of Defitelio infusion concentrate used intravenously were supplied by a Delhi resident Sandeep Bhui, which were spurious. Kansal said 10 vials were supplied for his brother, a cancer patient getting treatment at a private hospital in Gurugram, for ₹2.5 lakh.
Subsequently, Gurugram drugs control officer Amandeep Chauhan, assisted by police officials, arrested Bhui.
An email was sent by the Gurugram drugs control officer to Italy-based Gentium SRL, the manufacturer of Difitelio infusion concentrate to verify the credentials of vials. In its response, the head of quality, Gentium SRL, Manuela Camisa, wrote that Defitelio (batch number 19G19A) reported by the Haryana FDA is not an authentic batch and should not be used.
The state drugs controller said that it thus became evident that the product fell under Section 17-B (E) of the Act – a spurious drug purported to be a product of a manufacturer but which is actually not. Bhui on being interrogated told the police and FDA that the injections were supplied to him by one MR Ansari of Delhi, the police said. Ansari, who surrendered before FDA Gurugram on April 28, told officials that he procured the injections from Noida-based Heartland Pharmacy (OPC) Pvt Ltd.