Bengaluru: The Karnataka government announced Thursday that it had set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the ‘inter-state’ fake medicine racket busted the previous day. The six-member SIT will be headed by Bengaluru (West) Joint Commissioner of Police C. Vamsi Krishna.
Formation of the SIT comes a day after the Karnataka Food Safety and Drug Administration (FDA) busted an ‘inter-state’ racket, seizing Rs 5 crore worth of fake medicines in Bengaluru South district. The SIT will probe all related cases across the state to investigate a potentially larger network.
U.T. Khader, the minister for health and family welfare, said Wednesday that the FDA along with the police seized fake medicines worth more than Rs 4.91 crore and apprehended three people, but added that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
“This appears to be a national level (operation). We will share the details with the Centre, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana states as well. We need a Special Investigation Team to probe into this since it is an inter-state racket,” Khader had told reporters Wednesday.
He also said that so far authorities in Karnataka have been able to establish that the fake medicines were manufactured in Himachal Pradesh and Telangana, and could not have reached Bengaluru unless there was a bigger network.
Khader alleged that the ‘kingpin’ of this racket is suspected to be running it from Dubai, suggesting an international link to the racket.
The state health department, he said, will now assess which pharmacies and hospitals these fake medicines were supplied to and compile a list of anyone administered these drugs in the last two years.
Fake medicines seized during the raid included replicas of high-end antibiotics such as Pfizer-AbbVie’s Emblaveo (used to treat bacterial infections), Zavicefta (used in ICUs), Ceftivent injections (used to treat bacterial infections), Xavitaz (to treat gram-negative bacterial infections in critical patients), and Hizlam (central nervous system depressant used before surgery), among others.
“The investigation revealed that the (raided) premises was being used to procure lower-cost medications from other states, which were then allegedly filled into new vials and relabelled to mimic expensive multinational corporation (MNC) brands and imported drugs by name Pfizer,” the health department said in a statement.
It added that the fake medicines contain no active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs); instead, they are produced using wrong or contaminated ingredients or harmful substances.
The FDA said that under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, fake medicines are dealt with under Section 17B and the punishment for manufacturing, selling, stocking, or distributing spurious drugs is specified under Section 27. Penalties range from 10 years to life imprisonment.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)