India has suspended a drugmaker’s manufacturing licence after the World Health Organization flagged contamination in its cough syrups chanced on within the Mashall Islands and Micronesia in April, the executive knowledgeable the parliament on Tuesday.
Indian regulators are inspecting drugmakers after cough syrups made within the country delight in been linked to no longer lower than 89 small one deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan remaining year, which has broken India’s image as the “pharmacy of the sphere” providing cheap medication globally.
The WHO flagged contamination with unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, that are toxic to humans when consumed and would possibly per chance presumably present deadly, in samples taken from a batch of cough syrup made by QP Pharmachem Ltd, basically based totally within the northern Punjab utter. The firm has denied any wrongdoing and knowledgeable Reuters it deliberate to enchantment in opposition to the suspension.
“Drug samples drawn from the manufacturing premises … delight in been declared as ‘no longer of unparalleled quality’,” Deputy Health Minister Bharati Pravin Pawar knowledgeable the parliament.
The manufacturing licences of QP Pharmachem Ltd and two other corporations, whose merchandise delight in been linked to the small one deaths – Maiden Prescribed pills and Marion Biotech Pvt. Ltd – delight in been suspended and their exports halted, Pawar added.
Maiden Prescribed pills and Marion Biotech delight in additionally denied any wrongdoing.
Sudhir Pathak, managing director of QP Pharmachem, who knowledgeable Reuters the firm has deliberate to enchantment in opposition to the suspension utter with the executive, acknowledged manufacturing had been halted.
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Pathak acknowledged he had tested the substances feeble within the cough syrup, named Guaifenesin TG, before starting up its manufacturing. He additionally acknowledged he easiest exported the product to Cambodia and changed into no longer sure the procedure in which it would possibly per chance maybe delight in reached the Mashall Islands and Micronesia.
India has tightened its trying out of cough syrup exports since June, making it compulsory for corporations to create a certificates of diagnosis from a executive laboratory before exporting merchandise.
