Pharma lab employee and owner of the Max Relief Healthcare in Greater Noida has been alleged for the manufacture of fake medicines that were used in COVID-19 treatment. GB Nagar police has busted from where the “fake” drugs were packaged and sold to different states.

A reserve of fake medicines that included Azithromycin and Favipravir, packaging material and other machines worth Rs 50 lakh was recovered from the location. The officials said that the tablets that were recovered are worth Rs 25 lakh.

The factory was shut two days ago overlapping with the period in which multiple arrests were made by Mumbai police. The factory is located at 241, Udyog Kendra and was raided by a team of Ecotech III police.

The factory was run in the premises that was owned by Sheeshpal Sharma who is now summoned by the Ecotech III police to explain to whom he gave on rent the premises. Ecotech III SHO, Bhubanesh Kumar said that a vast collection of loose tablets, wrappers, packaging material and packaging machines was recovered from the location.

Additional DCP of Central Noida, Ankur Aggarwal said that fake medicines were related to COVID treatment and were manufactured and supplied from the factory. The raid was done after the arrests by Mumbai police in Mumbai and Meerut. The premises were locked and had to break open the lock.

Mumbai police had arrested Sudeep Mukherjee who is the resident of Ghaziabad and owner of Max Relief. It was found that the company’s GB Nagar company was selling drugs to wholesalers in the state without having a license.

As soon as the FDA received this information, it directed other states to stop using drugsfrom this particular manufacturer. On 30th May, Mukherjee had joined the FDA investigation and produced a photocopy of a license that appeared to be fake. The FDA did not find any appropriate documents for production and sale of drugs and this led to Mukherjee’s arrest.

Later, Mumbai police officials reached UP’s Meerut and caught Sandeep Mishra, who is an employee of a pharma lab allegedly manufacturing fake Favipravir tablets for Mukherjee and would later sell them. Police found that Mishra prepared the tablets and another accused did the packaging of the tablets and then were sold off.

Maharashtra’s Food and Drugs administration (FDA) had raided three wholesale drug dealers in Mumbai and seized a stock of Favimax 400 and 200 (i.e., Favipravir tablets) and hydroxychloroquine tablets worth Rs 1.5 crore.

It mentioned that these tablets were manufactured by Max Relief Healthcare in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, however it was found that the company did not exist.

Source: ET Healthworld