Nepal bans import of medicines from 16 Indian companies

Nepal’s Department of Drug Administration has published a list of 16 Indian pharma companies, including Divya Pharmacy that manufactures Yoga guru Ramdev’s Patanjali products, that failed to comply with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) good manufacturing practices.

Publication of the list by the department, the national regulatory body of the drugs markets, both allopathic and ayurveda, means that medicines manufactured by those companies cannot be imported to Nepal.

Publication of the list by the department, the national regulatory body of the drugs markets, both allopathic and ayurveda, means that medicines manufactured by those companies cannot be imported to Nepal.

“After inspection of the manufacturing facilities of the pharmaceutical companies, which had applied to export their products to our country, we have published the list of the companies that do not comply with the WHO’s good manufacturing practices,” said Santosh KC, a Department spokesperson.

In April and July, the department had sent a team of drug inspectors to India to probe the manufacturing facilities of pharma companies that had applied to supply their products to Nepal.

Besides Divya Pharmacy, the list also names Radiant Parenterals, Mercury Laboratories, Alliance Biotech, Captab Biotec, Zee Laboratories, Daffodils Pharma, GLS Pharma, Unijules Life Science, Concept Pharma, Shree Anand Life Sciences, IPCA laboratories, Cadila Healthcare, Dial Pharma, Aglowmed and Mackur laboratories.

The department said that, among the Indian companies, it has prohibited, some are already registered and some are new.

Products of some companies do not comply with the regulatory requirements and some companies do not comply with good manufacturing practices. Among them, some companies’ products are used in critical care, dental cartridges and also vaccines.

The department has also published a list of 46 drug-manufacturing companies, which are found to comply with the WHO’s good manufacturing practices.

A few months ago, the department had alerted drug inspectors to step up surveillance to prevent the import and sales of cough syrups manufactured by an Indian pharma company after scores of children in Gambia died of kidney failure upon allegedly consuming the syrups.

The move followed a global alert by the WHO about four cough syrups that could have links to the deaths of the children in July, Augus, and September in the West African country.

Edits by EP News Bureau