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59 out of 1,456 samples tested in August turned out to be NSQ
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Gireesh Babu, New Delhi
October 19 , 2022
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The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has declared almost four per cent of the drug samples it tested during the month of September as not of standard quality (NSQ), highest in terms of percentage in recent times.
The samples tested and declared as NSQ includes drugs from major firms including Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Hetero Healthcare and public sector undertaking Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
The drug regulator has tested a total of 1,456 samples, of which 59 were declared as NSQ, while 1,397 are of standard quality. There were no spurious or misbranded drugs identified in the testing during the month, according to the data released by the CDSCO.
The instances of not-of-standard quality drugs among the total number of drugs tested by the CDSCO have been in the range of 2-3 per cent for the last more than 12 months.
The drug samples tested as NSQ include two batches of ranitidine tablets IP 150 mg (Aciloc 150) manufactured by Gujarat-based Cadila Pharmaceuticals, levocetrizine tablets IP 5 mg (Levocet) from Hetero Healthcare Ltd and povidone iodine solution IP 10% w/v from Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, among others.
Around 21 out of the 59 NSQs were manufactured in various locations of Himachal Pradesh, while 13 were from Uttarakhand, seven were from Gujarat, while the others were from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Odisha, Assam among others.
It may be noted that there has been an increased attention on the quality standards of drugs manufactured in the country after the World Health Organisation (WHO) alerted that four Indian made cough and cold syrups, allegedly manufactured by Haryana-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals has resulted in ill health to many children and death of 66 children in Gambia.
In the month of August, the drug regulator tested a total of 1,330 samples during the month of August and declared 45 out of them as not of standard quality, which is around 3.4 per cent of the total samples.
The CDSCO has recently said that the blood pressure drug teneligliptin tablet from Glenmark it declared as not of standard quality in May, this year, has been identified as a spurious drug.
The drug regulator comes out with the list of drugs, medical devices and cosmetics which are declared not of standard quality/spurious/adulterated or misbranded, every month.
The test samples were drawn by the zonal and sub zonal offices of CDSCO, and tested in the drug testing laboratories in Kolkata, Mumbai, Chandigarh, and Guwahati.
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