Fake drug menace in Baddi, over 300 Telma-H tablet of Glenmark seized

The menace of spurious drugs came to light during a raid at Aclime Formulations at Thana village. Despite having only a food licence, the firm was allegedly manufacturing the leading blood pressure drug of Glenmark Pharma.

This is second such case in the past 1 month where a food licence was nefariously used to manufacture drugs.

According to a recent media report in The Tribune, there were inputs of nefarious activities at Aclime Formulations following which its activities were being monitoring for the past one week.

A team was constituted by the Navneet Marwaha, State Drugs Controller (SDC). Drug inspectors Anoop Sharma, Lovely Thakur, Lalit Kumar, Suresh Kumar, Rajat Kumar and Akshay raided the unit and also took police assistance.

301 Telma-H tablets were seized along with 340-gm printed foil used for packing the tablets, 34.02-kg empty strips and scrap generated during the packing of tablets. 28 strips of Telma-H tablets of Glenmark Pharma, and rubber stereos used to print the batch number, expiry date and other details on the tablets were also recovered.

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10 workers were present during the raid. However, the owner of the premises, Giriraj Tomar, was not present and he did not join the investigation inspite of being informed.

Since the machinery used to manufacture tablets and liquid for nutraceuticals is similar, the unit staff were manufacturing allopathic drugs on the sly while dispatching the finished products soon after manufacturing. Further, the QR code was also copied so adroitly that it was difficult to differentiate between the bogus and the original product. The machinery was into nutraceutical manufacturing for the past 3 to 4 years.

"The firm holds a food licence issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, but no drug manufacturing licence was found with the firm," Marwaha stated.

The SDC further stated, "During the search, 301 tablets of Telma-H tablet (talmisartan 40 mg and hydrochlorothiazide 12.5 mg), which is an allopathic drug of Glenmark Pharma, were recovered from its premises and stores near it."

Two samples of the tablets have been sent for a lab analysis and the premises has been sealed.

Meanwhile, "A case for manufacturing spurious drugs for sale and manufacturing drugs without a licence has been registered under Sections 18(c), 18(a)(i) read with 17B, and 18(a)(vi) against the offenders under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act," the SDC told The Tribune.

Commenting on the issue, Glenmark's spokesperson said, "Counterfeiting compromises patient safety and is a serious and growing concern for the Indian Pharma Industry. We at Glenmark, strongly condemn the counterfeiting of our product, Telma H in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. We appreciate the swift and decisive actions taken by the government authorities in this regard. We are a responsible corporate citizen and pride ourselves on our drug quality and patient safety; and thus take the issue of counterfeit drugs very seriously . In that respect, we are taking all necessary measures, including closely working with the government authorities, to address this counterfeiting menace. In case of any queries, consumers may get in touch with our Global Customer Service Team at Global.CustomerService@glenmarkpharma.com."