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Pharmaceuticals

Low-quality drugs in India raise concerns

by K. V. Venkatasubramanian, Special to C&EN
February 29, 2016 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 94, Issue 9

Indian researchers have found that significant percentages of diclofenac sodium, a painkiller, and amoxicillin trihydrate, an antibiotic, sold in the country are of low quality. The published findings by a team led by Ahmed Nawaz Khan, assistant professor of pharmacy at Jaypee University of Information Technology, showed a higher percentage than the government’s national estimates for drugs that are substandard, meaning the products do not meet quality benchmarks (J. Appl. Pharm. Sci. 2015, DOI: 10.7324/japs.2015.501226; Int. J. Pharm. Pharm. Sci., 2016, 8,386). Khan told C&EN, “Out of 32 samples of diclofenac sodium products, we found 15.62% substandard, and out of 46 amoxicillin trihydrate products, we found 13.04% substandard, which indicate an alarming situation.” Khan says the samples don’t represent the nation’s overall drug supplies but raise questions about the quality of other drugs sold in India. Last December, surveys by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, India’s regulatory authority, had shown that only about 4.5% of the drugs in the Indian market are substandard.

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