Maharashtra FDA Busts Fake Antibiotics Racket in Nagpur, Seizes 21,600 Tablets

NAGPUR: An official from the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration, on Saturday, said that the agency had exposed a fake medicine racket and seized 21,600 tablets being presented as the antibiotic ciprofloxacin from a government hospital in Nagpur. The medicine, according to the FDA official, was purchased via a government contract process last year. Fake tablets of ciprofloxacin, reportedly worth crores of rupees, were provided to government health facilities throughout Maharashtra according to the FDA. In March 2023, the agency had picked up several samples of such tablets from a government healthcare facility in Kalmeshwar tehsil, sending them for tests to a lab in Mumbai. 

The test report, which came out in December of last year, revealed that the tablets had no medicinal value as they completely lacked ciprofloxacin. Given that the tablets had been supplied to various government health care facilities through the Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital in Nagpur, the FDA raided the medicine store at the facility and picked up 21,600 tablets from the same brand. 

The brand in question turned out to be a bogus company named ‘Refubed Pharma, Gujarat’, which, according to FDA officials, does not exist. 

The Kalmeshwar police have booked Vijay Shailendra Choudhary of Thane, Hemant Dhondiba Mule, a resident of Latur, and Mihir Trivedi of Bhiwandi near Thane in connection with this case.

Prime accused Choudhary is already in jail in a bogus medicine sale case. Choudhary had given the tablets to Trivedi, who passed them onto Mule for supply to government facilities, the officials added.

With inputs from PTI.