Page 4 - Drugs

Dr Reddy's Laboratories R&D facility gets VAI status in USFDA inspection

Last year in December, during the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Pre-Approval Inspection at the same facility concluded with three observations

Efforts underway to eradicate illegal poppy cultivation in Manipur: CM

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh asserted that efforts are underway to eradicate illegal poppy cultivation in the northeastern state. He said a review meeting was held in the CM Secretariat on Thursday to "deliberate on measures and renewed strategies to end the menace". "Satellite mapping is being carried out and surveys are being conducted through unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to pinpoint locations of poppy plantations," he said. During the meeting, images of the poppy cultivation were handed over to the superintendents of police of Kangpokpi, Churachandpur, Senapati and Ukhrul districts and they were asked to destroy the plantations by the end of this month with assistance from other agencies, the CM said. "Poppy harvesting season is on... hence efforts are being made to destroy the poppy plantations before harvesting," he said. Singh also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for the Centre's decision to erect fencing along the India-Myan

JB Pharma CEO attributes 3.5% of company's growth to new introductions

"We are growing at 16 per cent, compared to the Indian Pharma Market (IPM) growth of 8 per cent, and a 12 per cent growth of the market which we cover," Chopra said

Elon Musk took illegal drugs with some Tesla board members: Reports

The relationship between Musk and his directors was slammed by a Delaware judge this week, who cited the board's conflicts of interest in her ruling that Musk's $55 billion pay package was excessive.

Breather for consumers as drug prices likely to remain same this year

In previous two years, hikes were in the range of 10-12%

Indian national pleads guilty in US to running dark web drug enterprise

A 40-year-old Indian national extradited from the UK has pleaded guilty to operating a global dark web enterprise to sell "deadly and dangerous drugs to communities across America" and agreed to forfeit approximately USD 150 million in cryptocurrency. According to court documents, Banmeet Singh from Haldwani in Uttarakhand created vendor marketing sites on dark web marketplaces to sell controlled substances, including fentanyl, LSD, ecstasy, Xanax, Ketamine, and Tramadol, the US Department of Justice said in a press release. Customers ordered controlled substances from Singh using the vendor sites and by paying with cryptocurrency. Singh then personally shipped or arranged the shipment of the drugs from Europe to America through US mail or other shipping services, the release said on Friday. Banmeet Singh and traffickers like him think they can operate anonymously on the dark web and evade prosecution...Today's guilty plea, which includes forfeiture of approximately USD 150 million

Billionaires spending a fortune to lure scientists away from universities

Braggadocio from startups is de rigueur, and plenty of ex-academics have started biotechnology firms, hoping to strike it rich on their one big discovery

Price push: Domestic pharma market grew by 6.8% in 2023, shows data

With an 8 percent growth in the anti-infectives category, it is not surprising that GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK) Augmentin is the top selling brand in 2023, second year in a row

LSD, cocaine: Elon Musk's drug use concerns Tesla and SpaceX execs

Musk has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties, the Journal said, citing unnamed witnesses and others with knowledge of the matter

Sub-standard drugs: Delhi minister seeks suspension of health secretary

Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on Friday recommended to the Lt Governor and the Centre the immediate suspension of the health secretary over the supply of "sub-standard" drugs to Delhi government hospitals. He also demanded strict action against the former director general of the Directorate General Of Health Services (DGHS). Addressing a press conference here, Bharadwaj said Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena has not taken any firm action against the officials concerned. He said upon assuming office in March 2023, he ordered an audit of medicines, equipment, and consumables but despite his repeated reminders to the health secretary, no action was taken. "The health secretary did not take any notice of this and did not initiate any audit related to the procurement of medicines," the minister claimed. Bharadwaj said in July, he sent a reminder to the senior official questioning why the orders had not been implemented and why there had been no audit of medicines and other items purch

Over 2.9k drugs found to be substandard in tests conducted in 2022-23: Govt

Out of the 89,729 drug samples tested between April 2022 and March 2023, 2,921 drugs were found to be "not of standard quality" while 422 were identified as spurious, the Rajya Sabha was told on Tuesday. In a written reply, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said 642 prosecutions were launched for manufacturing, sale and distribution of spurious/adulterated drugs, while 262 persons were arrested during the same period as per information received from drugs controllers of various states and Union territories. This excludes data from Rajasthan. Giving details of the previous year, Pawar said a total 88,844 samples were tested between April 2021 and March 2022 of which 2,545 were declared to be not of standard quality while 379 were found to be spurious. She said 592 prosecutions were launched for manufacturing, sale and distribution of spurious/adulterated drugs and 450 persons arrested during the same period. Responding to a question, Pawar said that in order to asse

Zydus Noveltech dissolved for not generating 'meaningful revenue'

It had nil operating revenue and a net worth of Rs 10 crore as of March 31, 2023

Indian companies likely to garner up to 50% USFDA nod share in 2023

Companies may get up to 375 ANDA approvals in 2023, more than last year's 355

No shortage of TB drugs in India, regular supply to states ensured: Govt

"Regular assessments are conducted to evaluate the stock positions at various levels, from central warehouses to peripheral health institutes," it said

No shortage of anti-TB drugs in country, six months stock available: Govt

The ministry has previously stated that all drugs used in the treatment of drug-sensitive TB are available with sufficient stocks for a time period ranging from six months and above

Loss of patents: Indian pharma companies gain, shows PharmaTrac data

While MNCs posted a 5 per cent five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the chronic segment, Indian pharma companies have recorded a 9 per cent 5-year CAGR

War-wracked Myanmar now world's top opium producer, says UN agency

Myanmar, already wracked by a brutal civil war, has regained the unenviable title of the world's biggest opium producer, according to a UN agency report released on Tuesday. The Southeast Asian country's opium output has topped that of Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban imposed a ban on its production, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in its Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2023." The Taliban's ban has led to a 95 per cent drop in the cultivation of opium poppies, UNODC said last month. Opium, the base from which morphine and heroin are produced, is harvested from poppy flowers. From 2022 to 2023, Myanmar saw the estimated amount of land used to grow the illicit crop increase 18 per cent to 47,100 hectares (116,400 acres), the new UNODC report said. Although the area under cultivation has not returned to historic peaks of nearly 58,000 ha (143,300 acres) cultivated in 2013, after three consecutive years of increases, poppy cultivation in Myanmar is expanding and ...

China's children battling pneumonia shows dangers of drug resistance

An outbreak of walking pneumonia, normally a mild infection, struck millions of children in the second half of 2023, creating Covid flashbacks and raising fears about another novel pathogen

HC raps Maharashtra govt for letting budgetary allocation for drugs lapse

The Bombay High Court on Friday pulled up the Maharashtra government for not releasing or spending the entire budgetary allocation for procurement of drugs and medical equipment, citing that it was letting the amount lapse at the cost of the healthcare system. A division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Arif Doctor sought to know from the government what steps have been taken to spend the budgetary allocation, the reasons for not releasing the amount entirely in the past and for not using the released sum. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions, including one initiated suo motu (on its own), raising concerns over the high number of deaths at government hospitals in Nanded and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar districts. Advocate General Birendra Saraf informed the bench that as per earlier orders, the government has now appointed a chief executive officer for the Maharashtra Medicines Procurement Authority, and the process of issuing tenders to procure drugs and equipmen

Cocaine worth Rs 220 cr seized at Paradip port, Vietnamese crew detained

In a major drug haul, cocaine worth Rs 220 crore was seized from a ship at the Paradip port in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district, officials said on Friday. Twenty-two suspicious packets were spotted in a crane on the ship anchored at the Paradip International Cargo Terminal (PICT) on Thursday night, they said. After the crane operator found it, he informed the authorities, suspecting it to be some kind of explosive. After tests, it was confirmed to be cocaine, they said. In a statement, the Customs Commissionerate said that they searched the ship around midnight acting on intelligence inputs and found the packets of cocaine. The Panama-registered cargo ship, named MV Debi, began its voyage from Egypt and arrived here via the Gresik port in Indonesia. It was scheduled to depart for Denmark with steel plates from here, officials said. "Twenty-two packets were recovered from a crane on the ship. The powder-like substance was confirmed as cocaine after examination using a special kit. T