Maiden pharmaceuticals

Adds details and background Oct 5 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization on Wednesday said that four cough and cold syrups made by India's Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd could be potentially linked with serious kidney injuries and 66 deaths among children in Gambia. New Delhi-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals declined to comment on the matter. WHO issued a medical product alert for the four syrups and said it was conducting further investigation with the company and regulatory authorities in India. Gambia's government said last month it has also been investigating the deaths, as a spike in cases of acute kidney injury among children under the age of five was detected in late July. "While the contaminated products have so far only been detected in the Gambia they may have been distributed to other countries," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference on Wednesday. He added that WHO recommends all countries detect and remove these products from circulation to prevent further harm to patients. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest international multimedia news provider reaching more than one billion people every day. Reuters provides trusted business, financial, national, and international news to professionals via Thomson Reuters desktops, the world's media organizations, and directly to consumers at Reuters.com and via Reuters TV.

[1/4] Grieving parents hold up signs during a news conference, calling for justice for the deaths of children linked to contaminated cough syrups, in Serekunda, Gambia, November 4, 2022. In October 2022, the deaths of more than 70 Gambian children from Acute Kidney Injury were linked by global health... Read more NEW DELHI/LONDON, April 29 (Reuters) - An unnamed middleman in Mumbai provided a crucial raw material used in Indian-made cough syrups that have been linked to the deaths of more than 70 children in Gambia, a chemicals trader involved in the supply chain told Reuters. The World Health Organization said last year the syrups, made by Indian manufacturer Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd, contained lethal toxins ethylene glycol (EG) and diethylene glycol (DEG) – used in car brake fluid. These ingredients can be used by unscrupulous actors as a substitute for propylene glycol (PG), which is a key base of syrupy medicines – because they can cost less than half the price, as Reuters The children who died were mostly under age 5 and died of acute kidney injury, some within days of taking the syrups. India's drugs regulator told the WHO in December that the propylene glycol used in the syrups came from Goel Pharma Chem, a Delhi-based pharma-supplies company, and was "recorded to have been imported" from South Korean manufacturer SKC Co Ltd Sharad Goel, whose eponymously named company is based in north Delhi, said he had bought the ingredient in sealed barrels – but not directly ...

The Indian government has launched an inquiry into an allegation that the local pharmaceutical regulator, in return for a bribe, helped switch samples of cough syrups that were linkedto the death of at least 70 children in Gambia before the samples were tested in an Indian laboratory, the news agency Reuters said in a report on Wednesday (June 14). Citing a letter to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in the Indian state of Haryana, the report said a lawyer named Yashpal has accused the state's Drug Controller Manmohan Taneja of taking a $605,419 bribe from Maiden Pharmaceuticals to help it switch the samples before the laboratory tested them. Yashpal did not mention where he got this information from in the letter or gave any evidence for his claim about the syrups manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceuticals. Speaking to Reuters, Yashpal said he learned about the bribe allegation from two individuals in India's pharmaceutical industry, one working with Maiden, but refused to identify them. 'Want the matter formally investigated' The lawyer told Reuters that he wanted the matter to be formally investigated, and he was waiting to be asked to submit an affidavit that would trigger such an investigation. After the Gambia case came into public light, Yashpal said he started probing more closely and spoke with 40 sources across Haryana. During his conversations, the lawyer learnt about the alleged bribe. In the letter, the lawyer made around half a dozen claims of corruption against T...

Synopsis In an April 29 letter to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Haryana, a lawyer named Yashpal accused the state's drug controller, Manmohan Taneja, of taking a bribe of Rs 50 million ($605,419) from local manufacturer Maiden Pharmaceuticals to help it switch the samples before an Indian government laboratory tested them. Maiden's factory is based in Haryana state. Indian authorities have launched an inquiry into an allegation that a local pharmaceutical regulator, in return for a bribe, helped switch samples of cough syrups that the World Health Organization ( In an April 29 letter to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Haryana reviewed by Reuters, a lawyer named Yashpal accused the state's drug controller, Manmohan Taneja, of taking a bribe of Rs 50 million ($605,419) from local manufacturer Taneja did not respond to phone calls, messages or emails seeking comment. Maiden did not respond to requests for comment. The WHO said it had no knowledge of the allegation. Yashpal - who like some Indians uses only one name - did not say in the letter where he got the information, or provide evidence for his claim about the syrups made by Maiden. He said he has never represented any pharmaceutical companies or worked on cases involving compensation claims in his five-year career, but had started looking into Taneja last year after a pharma industry friend alerted him to another case of alleged corruption. After the Gambia deaths became public, Yashpal said he started investi...

The WHO on October 5 issued a health alert against Maiden's four products - Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup, and Magrip N Cold Syrup. The world health agency said that to date, Maiden Pharmaceuticals had not provided guarantees to the WHO on the safety and quality of these products. Days after the World Health Organisation (WHO) red-flagged four products of Delhi-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals following the death of 66 children in The Gambia, two health experts have said that India's Ministry of Health is answerable for these deaths in the West African country. In an exclusive interview with India Today, public health activists T Prashant Reddy and Dinesh Thakur said the primary responsibility lies with the licensing authority which is the state regulatory authority in our current framework. But in the case of the present incident in The Gambia, they said, since the Drugs Controller General of India was issuing a COPP (Certificate of Pharmaceutical product), even the CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation) bears responsibility. "How was it not aware of the company's track record while certifying its products? What is the basis on which CDSCO issues a CoPP?" they asked. The experts said there is plenty of blame to pass along, especially in the higher echelons of the Ministry of Health. "The drug regulation section of the ministry is aware of these problems but has done little to remedy the situation. The buck ultima...

Delhi-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd, which allegedly exported faulty cough syrup to the Gambia that led to the death of 66 children, has defaulted many times and had flouted rules before as well, a report in India Today stated. The pharma company, as per the report, has been flagged in many Indian states over the years for their medicines failing the quality and safety parameters. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday issued an alert against four cough syrups made by Maiden because they contained diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol. Both chemicals can be fatal for human bodies, as they can lead to severe liver and kidney damage.  The company has been reportedly under scanner for many years and has been questioned about its quality control standards in the past as many state governments, and authorities have flagged it.  Medicines under scanner  According to the report, the Bihar government had blacklisted Maiden Pharmaceuticals in 2011 for supplying substandard drugs. A drug named Methylergometrine tablets, which was taken from a hospital in Munger was found to be spurious. Another batch of drugs, Erythromycin Sterate Syrup 125mg/5 ml was found to be of unsatisfactory quality. Also read: According to the extended licensing, Laboratory and Legal Node (XLN) database maintained by the Government of India, Kerala and Gujarat state governments have repeatedly issued warnings against the company’s illegal practices. A Kerala drug inspector even filed a case...