Uzbekistan Cough Syrup Deaths: Marion Biotech Loses Manufacturing License After Toxins Found In Most Samples

Police on Friday arrested three employees of Marion Biotech and are looking for two directors, after tests found 22 of 36 syrup samples were "adulterated and spurious".

Marion Biotech pharmaceuticals company

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New Delhi: Centre directed the Uttar Pradesh Drug Controlling and Licensing Authority to cancel manufacturing license of Noida-based Marion Biotech, whose products have alleged links to deaths in Uzbekistan, after 22 of 36 drug samples taken for testing were found to contain toxins, news agency ANI reported.

Police on Friday arrested three employees of Marion Biotech and are looking for two directors, after tests found 22 syrup samples were "adulterated and spurious".

The matter is being probed even as the government pushed back allegations that cough syrup made by another Indian company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, led to the deaths.

Vaibhav Babbar, an inspector involved in the probe, said the samples were adulterated with ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol - toxins that the World Health Organization says were found in the products sold by the two companies in the two countries.

"Because Marion's drugs have gone to so many countries, I pray nothing happens elsewhere," Babbar said, adding, "The health ministry could issue an alert. They may do it. It will be good to issue an alert." The cough syrups have also been exported to Kyrgyzstan and Cambodia.

Notably, a government alert would warn people in all the countries to take the products off their shelves.  

According to reports, more than 300 children, most of them under 5 years of age, in Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan, died last year due to acute kidney injury associated with contaminated medicines, the WHO said in January.

Analysis by Uzbekistan's health ministry showed the cough syrups, Ambronol and DOK-1 Max, were contaminated with unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol or ethylene glycol, the WHO said in a January medical product alert. It also said it was important to detect and remove these “substandard products” from circulation.

India in October had suspended production at Maiden for violating manufacturing standards after WHO said four of its cough syrups may have killed dozens of children in Gambia.

However, Maiden has refuted such allegations, and tests by an Indian government laboratory found no toxins in them, Reuters reported.