Three held for illegal sale of Remdesivir vials in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Task force sleuths arrested three persons for the alleged illegal sale of Remdesivir injections used for Covid-19 treatment. Two of the accused are employees of a pharma company manufacturing generic version of Remdesivir injection.
Acting on specific information, a trap was laid at Begumpet. The accused, B Venkatesh, 27, field sales officer of the Hetero Healthcare and J Sharan Sai, 26, medical representative from Ram Nagar were arrested.They were in possession of 12 vials of Remdesivir injection. “Based on their confession, we arrested Sk Saleem Jaffar, 32, area business manager of Hetero Healthcare company, from his office in Kukatpally,” North Zone Task force inspector K Nageshwar Rao said.
Police seized 12 vials of 100mg Remdesivir injections from their possession. According to police, Saleem Jaffar and Venkatesh hatched a plan to make easy money by illegally selling the vials in black market for a higher price.
Sharan Sai came in contact with his former colleague, Jaffar and the latter agreed to sell the injection vial for Rs 15,000. “Sharan has been selling the same for Rs 20,000 to needy customers and medical stores,” Task force DCP P Radha Kishan Rao said.
On Monday, as per the instructions of Sai, Jaffar illegally procured 12 Remdesivir vials from their company outlet in Kukatpally and sent Venkatesh to Begumpet to deliver the vials to Sharan. Police arrested the trio and seized the vials.