Off the hook: Three phrama firms get clean bill of health

FIA discharges cases against them as none of their drugs found ‘spurious’

LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency Punjab has discharged cases against three pharmaceutical laboratories allegedly responsible for supplying contaminated medicines to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) after they were cleared of criminal offence.

Reports received from laboratories in and outside the country have so far not declared any medicine manufactured by the three pharmaceutical firms as ‘spurious’, sources familiar with the matter revealed.

As a result, the FIA has been barred from carrying out further investigations into the pharmaceutical firms, which were suspected of supplying spurious drugs which caused the deaths of over 100 people.

The FIA has power to initiate legal action under the Drugs Act, 1976 (XXXI of 1976) in a case where drugs found are spurious, a senior member of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the matter told The Express Tribune.

According to the Drugs Act, spurious drug means “a drug which purports to be a drug but does not contain the active ingredient of that drug; or which purports to be the product of a manufacturer, place or country of whom or of which it is not truly a product; or which is imported or exported or sold or offered or exposed for sale under a particular name, while actually it is another drug; or the label of which bears the name of an individual or company purporting to be its manufacturer or producer, whereas the individual or company is fictitious or does not exist.”

During the course of investigations, it was revealed that all three suspected pharmaceutical laboratories were not found involved in any criminal offence, as lab reports did not declare any medicine spurious or injurious to health, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The FIA has decided to discharge cases earlier registered against theses pharmaceutical laboratories on charges of manufacturing as well as supplying spurious drugs to the PIC, a senior member of the probe team confirmed.

Of the three pharmaceutical laboratories, a tablet, Alfagril, of one pharmaceutical laboratory, has been declared substandard – but not spurious or injurious to health, sources said.

Earlier, a judicial magistrate sent Chief Executive of Alfalah Pharma Waseem Choudhary on a 14-day judicial remand for not renewing the licence of his company, which sold medicines to the PIC.

The FIA produced the accused before the magistrate’s court. FIA officials prayed the court that they had recovered some record of selling medicines, which had been sold to the PIC, but now neither the PIC nor the Drug Testing Laboratory were providing any record related to the accused.

(With additional reporting by Rana Yasif in Lahore)

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2012.