Wockhardt shares drop 20 pct after FDA import alert

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Shares of drugmaker Wockhardt Ltd fell 20 percent on Thursday to their lowest level in more than seven months after the U.S. drug regulator published an "import alert" on one of its manufacturing facilities.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration published the alert, dated May 22, on a Wockhardt facility in Aurangabad in Maharashtra, according to the regulator's website.

An "import alert" results in detention without physical examination of drugs from firms that have not met so-called good manufacturing practices, according to the FDA site. It did not give the specific reason for the alert on Wockhardt.

Wockhardt officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

 

In April, the company said that the FDA had carried out an inspection at its injectables plant in Aurangabad and had issued form 483s to the company. A form 483 is issued when inspectors see conditions that they believe may violate U.S. rules, according to the FDA.

"We have initiated urgently, an accelerated and a comprehensive remedial measure of the observations of USFDA," Wockhardt said in a statement on its website dated April 15.

"We are determined to achieve full compliance in shortest time," it said in the April statement.

The company's shares fell 20 percent, their daily limit, to 1,313.80 rupees in a Mumbai market that was down nearly 2 percent.

(Reporting by Tony Munroe and Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)