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 4th, 2012.
COMMENTS (11)
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cocondrum; no one knows whom to blame. province want federation to file case, the companies will get away, there is no dearth of effiecient lawyers, who will put it on to the system,adjornments. side by side other things remaining unchanged, and everyone knows how things will work. No prosecution.so keep going. media is working best. Lets see the honest officers if any , working on it???
Come On! Atleast find some flaw in the "Other Pharma" outside Lahore, that was giving some badly needed relieve to local leaders, they were looking clean, now that's gone.
let me guess...they were owned by some Minister, or brother of a minister, or a cousin..a son-in-law even??
Has there ever been across the board accountability of wrong doers in Pakistan ?
The drug company in Karachi by the name of efroze has admitted it's fault in adding extremely high anti-malarial element of 50mg per day in the tablet (whereas you are not allowed to have more than 25mg per week).
What was this anti-malarial medicine doing in a tablet for heart patients??? Why was it that this tainted medicine was only in the batch meant for PIC???? These are serious questions.
Punjab Government and the suffering victims and families must take efroze to court and sue them heavily.
Finally?
Which 3?
This is a useless and time wasting news write up. It does not give the name of the three pharmaceutical companies with the exception of one, ALFALAH PHARMA.
So much corruption has taken place and is going on that citizens are least concerned with the exonerated persons / entities.
Name the pharmas and name the persons responsible and the punishments meted out to them. That is what Pakistan is interested in knowing. Is the laboratory staff adequately paid? Are the laboratories privately owned or publicly owned? That is a REQUIREMENT for your newspaper not words that waste time.
Salams to poorly managed Pakistan
Only in Pakistan.