Hyderabad: DCA seizes counterfeit anti-cancer drugs valued at Rs 4.35 crore

The DG of DCA termed the seizures of spurious anti-cancer drugs as a major breakthrough and biggest seizure in the State of Telangana.

Hyderabad: The drug inspectors at Drug Control Administration (DCA), Telangana on Tuesday announced the seizure of huge cache of spurious/ counterfeit anti-cancer drugs worth Rs. 4.35 crore from an unlicensed warehouse run by a firm Astrica Healthcare’ at Macha Bollaram, according to Director General (DG), TSDCA, V B Kamalasan Reddy.

The DG of DCA termed the seizures of spurious anti-cancer drugs as a major breakthrough and biggest seizure in the State of Telangana.

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The raids on the premises of the unlicensed warehouse was conducted on Monday, December 4 by DCA officials including Assistant Directors, P. Ramu and V. Balanaganjan and Drugs Inspectors, K. Muralikrishna, B. Praveen, G. Srikanth, N. Ravikiran Reddy and A.N. Kranthi Kumar, who seized 36 varieties of spurious/counterfeit anti-cancer drugs worth Rs. 4.35 crore.

Certain seized drugs were found to be of spurious in nature, as the labels bear details of a non-existent company ‘Astra Generics Pvt. Ltd.’ whose licenses had already been cancelled in July, 2022 but the manufacturing date mentioned on the seized drugs was March, 2023 in the name of the cancelled company.

The spurious drugs seized bear the names of the following companies including Astra Generics Pvt. Ltd., Telangana, Astrica Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., Medion Biotech Pvt. Ltd., Himachal Pradesh, Alliance Biotech, Himachal Pradesh, Sunvet Healthcare, Himachal Pradesh, Salus Pharmaceuticals, Himachal Pradesh, DM Pharma Pvt. Ltd, Himachal Pradesh, Safe Parenterals Pvt. Ltd., Andhra Pradesh, Bless Pharma India Pvt. Ltd., Telangana.

Earlier, on receiving credible information about the firm Astrica Healthcare, a special team led by Assistant Director, P. Ramu and Drugs Inspectors, G. Srikanth, K. Anvesh, M. Chandrasekhar, V. Ajay, and S. Vinay Sushmi had conducted raids at various locations in the city on December 2.

DCA officials took assistance of the postal authorities at Alwal to trace the location mentioned on the invoices gathered by the DCA and upon inquiry it has been found to be a fake address. The special team then carried out raids at courier offices used by the firm Astrica Healthcare for shipping their drug consignments. DCA officials split into two teams and one team raided the courier offices at IDA Cherlapally, Nacharam and Medchal and the other team raided the premises of ‘Astrica Healthcare’ at Keesara.

DCA officials identified the courier boy who was delivering the drug stock of Astrica Healthcare and traced the location of the counterfeit/spurious drugs that were stocked in three shutters at Macha Bollaram which is an unlicensed premise.

The prime accused in the case K. Sateesh Reddy, Director of Astrica Healthcare is absconding and efforts are being made to trace him to take legal action.