Singapore: Sri Lanka's Ministry of Health has decided to ban the purchase of drugs from four Indian pharmaceutical companies, including Laborate, Vivek, Bafna and Elysium Pharma, due to increasing quality issues.

The Health Ministry, led by the Cosmetics, Devices and Drugs Regulatory Authority (CDDRA) in Sri Lanka has ordered immediate suspension on purchasing drugs from these companies. They have cited the repeated supply of substandard pharmaceutical drugs to Sri Lanka within the past four years as the main reason for this reaction. 

CDDRA said in a press statement that a special team will be sent to Hyderabad to meet officials of another Indian drug manufacturer who had supplied low quality drugs to Sri Lanka. The authority had recently ordered the importers to withdraw quality defective bathes of Ceftriaxone injection from Karnataka Antibiotics and Pharmaceuticals, Cefotaxime for injection from Kilitch Drugs, Metronidazole injection from Claris Life Sciences and Cloxacillin Sodium sterile powder for injection from Elysium Pharmaceuticals.

The Ministry had earlier also suspended the imports of pharma drugs from Alvita Pharma due to repeated quality issues. Now, the ministry has advised the country to purchase necessary drugs from pharmaceutical companies in Bangladesh to avoid a drug shortage in the island. Further, importers have been instructed to re-acquire the money provided to the companies for purchasing drug stocks, not delivered so far.

The CDDRA had, in the month of May, also suspended several other Indian products, including cancer drug Reditux and an anti-infective used in cancer patients, Grastim, from Dr Reddy's; Biocon's head and neck cancer drug Biomab Egfr and cancer drug Nufil-Safe; Wosulin 30/70, Wosulin R, Wosulin N, cancer drug Wepox-30,000, Wepox 2000 and Wepox 4000, from Wockhardt; Intas biopharma's Neukine, an anti-infective used for cancer patients, an immunological chemotherapy drug, Neupeg, and antiviral used in cancer patient, Intalfa.