Following news about filing of forged documents (less expiry date as against the period demanded in tender) by a Nagpur-based medical company, the Kerala State Medical Services Corporation (KMSCL) has decided to send show-cause notice to the firm and put the company in blacklist. The company's representatives will be called for personal hearing, said Dr. S. R. Dileep Kumar, general manager of KMSCL.
Further, the medical services corporation has decided to cancel the company’s supplies of other medicinal products also. The Nagpur-based Adroit Pharmaceuticals has been supplying five varieties of medicines to KMSCL. All of them will be cancelled soon, he said.
Meanwhile, the Kerala drugs control department is contemplating legal action against the company for misbranding (by re-labeling), tampering the stickers and keeping the drugs in an unlicensed premises, said P Hariprasad, Kerala drugs controller.
In a telephonic conversation with Pharmabiz, Dr Dileep Kumar, general manager of KMSCL said that once the company is blacklisted, it cannot supply medicines to any medical corporations or government agencies in the country for the next three years. He said by committing a forgery like this, the company was cheating the KMSCL more than a tender violation.
He said the tender was demanding 36 months of shelf-life for the Surgical Spirit IP to be supplied to the corporation. Since the shelf-life of the product brought by Adroit Pharma showed only for 24 months, the warehouse at Kochi returned the same on the day itself. The people who brought medicines to the warehouse later tried for foul play by re-labeling the bottles. This action of the company is a criminal offence and also violation of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, he said.
After the incident, KMSCL has alerted all the warehouses and directed the officers not to receive any kind of product from Adroit further. The general manager of KMSCL said the excise department has taken a case against the company on the request of the corporation. But when contacted the Excise Inspector at Varappuzha in Ernakulam district, M P Sasi, responded that no case was taken yet.
Although the company has done a criminal offence, either KMSCL or DC department has not asked the police to investigate the case. In the year 2010, when massive scale recycling of date expired drugs was unearthed by the drugs control department in Tamil Nadu, the case was handed over to the police for further investigation.
In February this year, in Assam the Guwahati police had seized 72 cartons of date expired cough syrup, Phensedyl, after raiding a house in the city and arrested two persons. The police is investing the case now in addition to the investigation of the drugs control department.
Though the case is a serious one as far as the health of the people of Kerala is concerned, KMSCL is not interested to request the police department to conduct enquiries on the fraudulent activities of the suppliers of medicines to the government hospitals in Kerala. Actually the incident happened one month ago, but KMSCL was silent over the issue till news has appeared in Pharmabiz on June 28.
The investigating regional drug inspector at Kochi, Sudheerbhanu said the poor strength of the department is the reason for all foul plays by medical companies.
Though attempt was made to contact the company for their version, nobody attended the phone from Pharmabiz. Since the state legislative assembly was going on, Pharmabiz could not contact the health minister.
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