Indian authorities take down $3.3m fake medicines ring

The authorities in India have uncovered a major falsified medicines manufacturing operation in Puducherry dedicated to making sophisticated copies of widely-used drugs.

A raid by Puducherry's Drugs Control Department and Crime Branch–Crime Investigation Department (CBCID) seized 34 suspected counterfeit drug batches from an unlicensed warehouse, prompting an alert by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) to bring the network to the attention of state regulators.

According to the alert, the seized medicines included suspected counterfeit copies of:

• MSD's diabetes therapy Janumet (metformin and sitagliptin);
• Sanofi's antihistamine product Allegra (fexofenadine), high blood pressure therapy Cardace (ramipril), and diabetes therapy Amaryl (glimepiride);
• Dr Reddy's Labs' anti-inflammatory drug Ketorol (ketorolac trometamol);
• Torrent Pharma's cardiovascular disease products losartan and losartan/hydrochlorothiazide;
• Lupin's respiratory medicines Esiflo (salmeterol/fluticasone propionate), Budate (budesonide) and Budamate Forte (formoterol/budesonide), antibiotic L-Cin (levofloxacin), and Glador-1 (glimepiride) for diabetes;
• Tirupati Medicare's antihistamine syrup Telekast-L (levocetirizine/montelukast);
• Sun Pharma's Levipil (levetiracetam) for epilepsy, Rosuvas (rosuvastatin) for high cholesterol, Volibo (voglibose) for diabetes, and Ranozex (ranolazine) for angina;
• MSN Labs' Jalra (vildagliptin) and Jalra-M for diabetes (vildagliptin/metformin);
• AstraZeneca's antiplatelet drug Brilinta (ticagrelor);
• Sterilgene's Lupigest-100 and Synomkem's Lupigest SR200 (both progesterone) for infertility and hormonal imbalance;
• Abbott India's antihistamine Vertin 16 (betahistidine);
• Swiss Garnier Life Science's antihistamines Fexy (fexofenadine), Deskast (montelukast/desloratadine), and Doxiflo-M (doxofylline/montelukast); and
• Gelnova's cough suppressant Benzopearls (benzonatate).

Along with the seized medicines, which had a value of approximately Rs 30 crore ($3.3m), enforcement officers uncovered manufacturing machinery capable of producing authentic-looking holograms, QR codes, and packaging for pharmaceutical brands at a warehouse in the PIPDIC Industrial Estate at Mettupalayam, making two arrests.

Investigations suggest the ring supplied fake medicines to at least five medical distributors in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, and to customers in other cities in Uttar Pradesh as well as other Indian states, according to local media reports.

Commenting on the incident, Avi Chaudhuri – the author of our recent series on the flaws in India's anti-counterfeit scheme for domestic medicines – said it is "just the tip of the iceberg."

He told SecuringIndustry.com: "There are many such counterfeiting operations across India and the chance discovery of a warehouse or a tip off due to a failure of therapeutic effect is the usual way these discoveries unfold."

According to Chaudhuri, it is particularly unfortunate that India's national QR coding programme – which is supposed to allow authentication of medicines – has "failed so miserably that any thought of expanding that programme must stop in its tracks."

He added: "Several of the fake medicines discovered in this raid, as before in prior cases, actually had fake QR codes on the packages. And it is beyond belief that some brands still rely on holograms, which are now widely considered to be nothing but a shiny little element that adds absolutely no security value."