Fraud & Fabrication Rife in One of Largest Generic Drug Manufacturers
What was recently uncovered at Ranbaxy, the Indian drug company that makes generic Lipitor for millions of Americans, would make your hair stand on end. A devastating investigation by Fortune unearthed that the generics produced by Ranbaxy were ineffective and potentially dangerous. Clinical test results were fraudulent mock ups and Research and Development was non-existent.
Although no current or former Ranbaxy executives were charged with any crimes, Ranbaxy recently pleaded guilty to seven federal criminal counts and agreed to pay $500 million in fines, forfeitures, and penalties – the most ever levied against a generic-drug company.
With the sale of generic alternatives a booming industry (according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics – 84% of last year’s drug supply was generic with most of it produced abroad), this story is alarming on many levels. It took the FDA a long time to get the bottom of Ranbaxy’s misconduct, all the while allowing the company to continue selling their faulty products, and even granting them lucrative rights to sell new generic drugs!
With 80% of active pharmaceutical ingredients for all U.S. drugs now coming from overseas – what measures do we have in place to assure that they are safe?
