Bribe allegations on Biocon's injection unit, Joint drugs controller arrested

Alleging charges of bribe in a case involving a unit of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw backed Bicon, the Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested a Joint Drug Controller (JDC) and also a Director of Synergy Network India.

As per reports, the agency laid a trap wherein the JDC of CDSCO was caught while accepting a bribe of Rs 4 lakh from the Director of Synergy Network India Private Limited. The said Director was also caught.

The bribe reportedly was to clear Biocon unit's injection by waiving phase-three clinical trial of Insulin Aspart injection, an underdevelopment product of Biocon Biologics.

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"Phase 3 clinical trial is an important regulatory mechanism to assess the safety of a pharma product. Any attempt to waive them off can have serious public health safety repercussions," an official said

Searches were conducted at 11 places located at Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Patna and Bengaluru. The agency claims to have recovered alleged incriminating documents/articles.

Denying allegations of any wrongdoing, a spokesperson for Biocon Biologics said "All our product approvals are legitimate and backed by science and clinical data. Our bAspart is approved in Europe and many other countries. We follow the due regulatory process for all our product approvals by DCGI. The entire application process in India is online and all meeting minutes are in the public domain. We are co-operating with the investigation agency." - With Inputs from PTI & ET