While India has earned disrepute as a supplier of spurious or contaminated drugs in the past, anonymous Indian websites selling ?swine flu drugs? are the latest to come under the scanner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On Thursday, FDA warned consumers to exercise caution when purchasing products over the Internet that claim to treat or cure H1N1 influenza virus, after the agency found the versions of Tamiflu, sent from India to be fake. The two antiviral drugs approved by the FDA for treatment and prophylaxis of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus are Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate) and Relenza (zanamivir).
US FDA, in its posting, says, ?One of the orders, from India, consisted of unlabeled, white tablets taped between two pieces of paper. When analysed by the FDA, the tablets were found to contain talc and acetaminophen, but none of the active ingredient oseltamivir. The website disappeared shortly after the FDA placed the order.?
Indian manufacturers of Tamiflu seem unhappy over such incidents as they may tarnish the India?s image as a sought-after destination for cheaper drugs. According to Srinivas Reddy, director, marketing, Hetero Drugs, though such a dubious way of selling will affect the image of the Indian market, routine alerts by FDA will minimise the impact in the future as far as the online purchase of the spurious drugs is concerned. Globally, Tamiflu sales stood at $564 million in 2008, much lower than 2007 sales of $1.7 billion, owing to the bird flu outbreak.
Last month, Hetero made anti swine flu drug ?fluvir? available in Indian retail markets. Hetero has the licensing rights from Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd to manufacture and supply oseltamivir in India as well as in 100 underdeveloped and developing countries.
The Centre had procured 19 million fluvir capsules from Hetero to check the recent outbreak of deadly H1N1 flu in India.
According to the European Commission data, India stood second after Switzerland in the list of top exporters of fake medicines to the EU in 2007 with 35% of the total fake drugs seized.