FDA: Need time to decide on legality of seized drugs

Kolhapur: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials on Monday said they could not immediately decide whether the huge stock of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine drugs seized by the Thane police from pharma company Avon Lifesciences' godown at Chincholi MIDC in Solapur district was illegal or not.
The Thane police had said on Sunday that there were no records of the 18,627 kg seized drug stock. The medicines were allegedly used to manufacture party drug Crystal Meth, worth over Rs 2,000 crore. The police found that the drugs had been transported to Thane from Solapur, where a gang was stealing them from the company, which has been closed for the last 9 months.
The FDA officials said they could tell whether the stock was illegal or not only after completing their inspection. They were also not ready to say when the inspection would end.
The FDA did not have data of their last inspection at the company. It is mandatory for any pharmaceutical company to disclose their stocks to the local FDA office. The FDA (Solapur) officials were not aware whether the company had ever disclosed its stock to them.
"We are at the company's office and inspecting the earlier records. We cannot tell whether the stock was legal or illegal unless we go through the records. We have been inspecting the office since Sunday. The data is huge. We need more time to say whether the company had disclosed its stocks to the FDA or not," assistant FDA commissioner (Solapur) Jawandale Patil said.
State FDA commissioner Harshadeep Kamble is on deputation in Kolkata for the West Bengal assembly elections. No FDA official was willing to talk about the drug haul.