More than 50 medicines, including calcium and vitamin D3 supplements, diabetes medications and high blood pressure medications, have failed quality checks by India’s drug regulator.
the Latest monthly drug warning listThe Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has declared 53 medicines under ‘Out of Standard Quality (NSQ) alert’.
NSQ alerts are generated from random sampling conducted monthly by state drug enforcement officers.
Vitamin C and D3 tablets Shelcal, Vitamin B complex and Vitamin C soft gel, antacid Pan-D, paracetamol tablets IP 500mg, anti-diabetic drug Glimepiride and hypertension drug Telmisartan are among the top 53 medicines that failed the quality checks by the drug regulator.
These medicines are manufactured by companies such as Hetero Drugs, Alkem Laboratories, Hindustan Antibiotics Limited (HAL), Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Meg Lifesciences and Pure & Cure Healthcare.
Metronidazole, a drug widely used to treat stomach infections and manufactured by PSU Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd (HAL), is also among the drugs which failed the quality test.
Similarly, Shelcal, marketed by Torrent Pharmaceuticals and manufactured by Uttarakhand-based Pure & Cure Healthcare, also failed the test.
Additionally, a drug testing laboratory in Kolkata has determined that Alkem Health Sciences’ antibiotics Clavam 625 and Pan D are fake.
The same lab found that Hyderabad-based Hetero’s Sepodem XP 50 dry suspension, prescribed for children with severe bacterial infections, did not meet the standards.
Paracetamol tablets from Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceuticals Limited have also been flagged for quality concerns.
The drug regulator has published two lists of medicines that have failed quality tests: one includes 48 popular drugs, while the other lists five more medicines and a section for responses from the drugmakers who failed these tests.
However, in their response, pharmaceutical companies have denied responsibility, saying the drugs are “fake.”
“The actual manufacturer (as stated on the label) has informed us that the batch of product in question was not manufactured by them and is counterfeit. The product is alleged to be counterfeit, but this is subject to the outcome of our investigation.” In the pharmaceutical company’s response section:.
In August, CDSCO banned over 156 fixed-dose drug combinations “potentially hazardous to humans” from the Indian market. These included popular antipyretics, painkillers and anti-allergy drugs.
