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Maiden Pharma has denied that its drugs were responsible for the deaths in The Gambia. (File) Two pharmaceutical company executives were sentenced to two and a half years in prison for exporting substandard medicines to Vietnam a decade ago, months after the WHO linked their cough syrups to the deaths of children in The Gambia, Reuters reported on Thursday. Tuesday. The central government suspended production of Maiden Pharmaceuticals in October last year for violating manufacturing standards after the World Health Organization said four of its cough syrups could have killed dozens of children in The Gambia.
The company has denied that its drugs were responsible for the deaths in The Gambia and tests by a government laboratory found they did not contain any toxins.
The company had been in legal trouble for years over allegedly poor-quality products.
A court in Sonipat, Haryana, where Maiden has its main production site, has ordered the jailing of company founder Naresh Kumar Goel and technical director MK Sharma for exporting "non-standard quality" heartburn drugs to Vietnam.
"The court has reached the conclusion that the plaintiff/accusation a dûment proved the accusation (...) au-delà de l'ombre d'un doute raisonnable", judge Sanjeev Arya declared in his decision. last week.
The written ruling was posted online this week. The court gave them until March 23 to appeal to a higher court.
The two were also fined Rs 100,000 each for exporting the drug Ranitidine in BP tablets (Mantek-150) to Vietnam.
Mr. Goel did not answer calls on his phone. The company said it had no immediate comment on the convictions and declined to provide Sharma's contact details.
Their lawyer told the court that since Goel and Sharma were both in their 60s and had been on trial for seven years, they should have a "lenient view" on their sentence, according to the ruling.
Authorities here began investigating the company in 2014 after the Indian Consulate General in Vietnam told India's Drug Comptroller General that Vietnam had blacklisted numerous Indian companies, including Maiden, for quality violations. .
