This story is from April 18, 2016
stock
price ofAvon Lifesciences
fell 20% to Rs 23.05 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Monday. The Hyderabad-headquartered pharmaceutical company, listed on the Bombay and Calcutta stock exchanges, has been in the news since the Thane police busted a drug cartel that led them to the company’s Solapur unit. In a damage-control measure, on Monday, the company sent a notice to the BSE saying that it was “cooperating with the relevant investigating authorities and theFDA
to get to the facts around this incident”. The note stated that the company has valid licences and statutory registration for stocking and sale of all products manufactured at the Solapur site and the material has been accounted for and stocked with due notice to the concerned statutory authorities. “The concerned matter revolves around theft of some material and we are ascertaining the same in active cooperation with the investigating authorities,” said the note. A company release to the media, too, gave a detailed 16-point rebuttal on various police claims. It stated that the pilferage was done by a labour and administration consultant, one Punit, along with alleged drug dealer Dhyaneshwar Swami and that the company itself wants to get to the bottom of the case. “The investigation has gone offtrack with baseless allegations that activities at the Avon site are illegal and without permission and stocks unaccounted for,” read the note. When TOI contacted non-executive chairman and MD Ajit Kamath, he replied in an SMS that the company is cooperating with the probe “earnestly”. Meanwhile, FDA authorities in Solapur have been inspecting the stock found at the unit.“We cannot say whether the stock was legal or illegal until we go through the records. There is a lot of data involved,” Jawandale Patil, assistant commissioner of FDA, Solapur, told TOI. On the Thane police claim that 18,627 tonne of ephedrine was seized, Patil said, “We cannot comment at the moment. We need time to say whether the company had disclosed information on the stock to the FDA.”