Combiflam replicated and sold as ComiflamHyderabad is gradually turning into a hub for fake drug marketing.
The Enforcers of Intellectual Property along with the Hayathnagar police have recovered several look-alike viagra cialis online pharmacy pharmacy on August 3 in the city.
An official of EIPR said, "the manufacturing is done in the northern states and marketing is done in various metropolitan cities like Hyderabad."
For instance, EIPR along with Hayathnagar police, conducted a raid at GENPAK and Vaibhav Drugs Pvt Ltd at Peddamberpet and seized look-alike tablets of Combiflam Company. The drug was named as COMIFLAM instead of COMBIFLAM.
An FIR has been lodged against the accused under section 63 IPC 420.
4 lakh aluminium rolls to manufacture the tablets and more than 5,000 empty outer packing boxes were seized. The accused is still absconding. All the samples are sent to Forensic Science Laboratories (FSL) for analysis.
Not just COMBIFLAM is replicated but other drugs like Saridon are also done. The look alike tablets of Saridon were sold in the name of silidon and solidan.
Shockingly, pain balms are found to be replicated. Amrutanjan has been replicated as Amrutanzan.
A patient at the Osmania General Hospital, was given an anaesthesia shot just before an operation. He was supposed to be in an unconscious state for two hours, but he regained consciousness within half-an-hour as the drug’s effect wore off. The hospital’s department of anaesthesia has complained to the APHMHIDC managing director that six anaesthetic drugs supplied to them, including Xylocaine jelly and Thiopentone, were ineffective. "As they are ineffective, we had to give three times more than normal dose. For instance, instead of one mg, we had to give three mg dose to make patients unconscious,’’ an anaesthetist told."We cannot take a chance with a patient’s life,’’ another OGH doctor said. After receiving the complaint, drugs were replaced by APHMHIDC.
Later the APHMHIDC collected samples of the ineffective drugs from three depots with the help of Drugs Control Administration and sent them for tests and the officials told that they would initiate action based on the report.The APHMHIDC supplies about 250 varieties of drugs worth Rs 150 crore to all hospitals in the state, including major hospitals like Osmania General Hospital and Gandhi Hospital in the city. Officials claim not maintaining a cold chain could also lead to ineffectiveness of a drug. To avoid any chain-related loss, the APHMHIDC is planning to set up one more central storage point in the city. As of now, there is only one central drug store at King Koti, which supplies drugs for Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts. "Not just in government hospitals, drug replication is also happening in well-established medical stores in the city", opined an official of the EIPR.
EIPR is an investigation agency specialising in anti-counterfeiting solutions.
