INDIA. Mumbai: A 31-year-old woman was arrested by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW), Crime branch, of the Mumbai Police on charges of selling fake medicines in the name of a Japanese firm, to cancer patients on Thursday evening.
The charges under sections 420, 336, 483, 486, 34 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 51, 63, and 65 of the Copyright and Trademark act 1957 were levelled and an offence (EOW, CR No 87/2021) was registered against the accused Pooja Rana (31). Besides, the medicines and other material are worth Rs. 67.90 lakh was seized by the police from her office located in Kalyan in Thane district(near Mumbai). More people are likely to be arrested soon, the police said.
The medicines “Adcetris” injection and “Iclusig” tablet are produced only by M/s.Takeda Pharmaceutical Ltd, based in Osaka, Japan. The United Overseas Trademark Company is the authorized agent of the Takeda Pharmaceutical LTD (TPL), in India, the police said.
The action against the accused was taken based on a complaint filed by Advocate Gaurav Anil Gogia, representing the TPL. In his complaint Advocate, Gogia pointed out that a company “Prime Health Pharma”, was selling fake medicines in the name of TPL.
As per the complaint, Police Inspector Nitin Patil and his team in March laid a trap at Santacruz in northwest Mumbai and acted as customers wanting to purchase medicines for cancer patients. One “Adcetris” injection was purchased by the police for Rs 1,12,000. The actual price of the injection is around Rs 5 lakh.
After purchase, the police sent the said injection for test and forensic analysis. The report said the injection was fake and not produced by TPL. Once the report was out, police immediately raided the premises of the Prime Health Pharma located at Netavali, Kalyan East in the Thane district. During the raid, the police seized 7 bottles of Adcetris- (costing Rs 5.80 lakh each), two boxes of inclusig ( Rs. 13.50 lakh per box), a laptop, and a mobile phone.
The operation was carried out under the supervision of Joint Police Commissioner Niket Kaushik by Police officers Rohit Sawant, Anil Jaikar, Rupesh Darekar, Eknath Desai, and staff comprising Head Constable Naik, Jadhav, Bhandari, Yadav, Kumbhar, Shendge, Raut, Giri, and Pol
The accused Pooja Rana along with another accused was making fake medicines and supplying them to cancer patients. The manufacture and storage of these medicines is not permitted.
Police said that the case is very serious because these are fake medicines that could immensely harm the patients and could cause danger to their life. Further investigation into the matter is underway.
