India’s first spurious favipiravir racket busted

AHMEDABAD: Even as the police continue to crack down on those selling fake remdesivir, another racket — in what is touted to be the country’s first case of counterfeit anti-viral drug favipiravir — has been busted in the state. The state food and drugs control authority carried out statewide raids and seized 5,850 tablets worth Rs 7.5 lakh sold by a fake pharmaceutical manufacturing firm to seven pharma outlets in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat and Bhavnagar.

The FDCA identified the alleged kingpin as Sudip Mukherji who ran Max Relief Healthcare. The firm operated from Gwalior and used to push the fake drugs through a website for online sales.
The fake anti-viral drug were sold as Favimax-400 and Favimax-200. FDCA officials are now concerned if these tablets have already made their way to patients.
Mukherji’s firm was shown to be fictitiously registered in Solan, Himachal Pradesh. He even claimed that he marketed his fake anti-viral concoction through a Kolkata-based firm, Covalent Healthcare. “We found this marketing firm to be fake,” says Gujarat FDCA chief HG Koshia.
He said that after remdesivir and tocilizumab, favipiravir was the next candidate for duplicates as its demand had increased four times in the state during the April-May pandemic surge. “I have not heard of fake favipiravir being seized anywhere else. We checked with the DGCI,” says Koshia.
Elaborating on the modus operandi, FDCA officials claimed that Mukherji’s firm supplied the drug to Meditab Worldwide in Kandivali, Mumbai, and two firms in Ahmedabad called Anisum Lifesciences and RB Remedies. However, the bulk of the tablets were routed through Meditab into the Gujarat market. These were supplied to pharmacies and stockists in Ahmedabad like Krishna Pharma at Ellisbridge, Kivonyx in Changodar, and Kakmax Pharmaceuticals in Kathwada.
In Rajkot, the tablets were supplied to Oncovac Orange and Jaliyan Pharma. In Surat, the fake anti-virals were supplied to Run Medway and Sanskruti Pharma.