India, being world’s pharmacy, produced more than 60,000 generic drugs in 60 different therapeutic categories in the year 2023. The Indian pharma industry showed 6.1% value growth in October 2024, and it’s expected the industry to reach $130 billion by 2030. This wide picture indicates a promising future of the pharma industry in India and fills our hearts with pride. However, if we dive deep into it, the astounding reality will leave no stone unturned to dishearten us.

Every year, 27% of total deaths in our country caused by poor access to drugs and knowledge. According to Ministry of Health & Family Welfare 2014-16 Report, 3.16% of drugs in India are FAKE1. ASPA, a Non-Profit organization, claims up to 20% of medicines in India are counterfeit or spurious. In a 2009 nationwide survey, CDSCO analyzed 24,136 drug samples (collected 1995-2008) and found 1,693 counterfeited. In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) found 1 in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries to be substandard or falsified.

Hundreds of fake drug cases are reported every year in India and these numbers are rapidly growing. Whether you are buying generic medicines or branded ones, you are always at risk. It’s because you can never know if your medicine has the right active ingredient. So, the big question remains – should you trust the medicines you are buying?

Fake Drugs & Counterfeited Medicines Throughout India

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) shares its report every month about the drug quality and standards in the Indian market. The November 2024 report of CDSCO states 2 drugs as spurious and another 111 formulations are not of standard quality. 34 drug samples were declared of substandard quality in CDSCO’s October report. In September, 53 medicines, including paracetamol, calcium, vitamin D3, anti-diabetes, and blood pressure drugs, were flagged for failing quality tests.

But why does it happen? Big pharma companies outsource a lot of their manufacturing and primarily focus on marketing their brands instead of ensuring quality of their drugs. They have shifted their priorities and turned into some sort of marketing companies rather than medicine manufacturers. They just want to ensure their brands are the most known while the actual drug quality takes a backseat. Therefore, they are the most targeted for spurious medicines. In these failed drug reports, large brand names like Sun Pharma, Cipla, Dr. Reddy’s are ever-present next to both Sarkari (Hindustan Antibiotics) & no-name companies. Medicines of popular brands like ShelCal, Pan-D, and so many more have been found to be substandard.

These reports are often published and even covered on news channels, but barely does any improvement take place. The drug regulators in India have made various rules and regulations, but they are barely followed. Additionally, these regulatory bodies are very inefficient and have a number of corruption cases. Therefore, pharmaceutical companies do whatever they want in order to maximize their profit without the need for ensuring quality standards of medicines they manufacture.

Times When Drugs Took Away Lives 

In Ramnagar, a town in Kashmir, over 12 children under the age of five reported dead between December 2019 and January 2020 after consuming cough syrup manufactured by Digital Vision Pharma. The reason for deaths was severe kidney damage. Later, the similar incidents took place in Gambia and Uzbekistan.

In 2022, W.H.O issued a global alert, when some children from Gambia diagnosed with serious kidney problems in late July. Later laboratory analysis exposed that the cough syrup manufactured by “Maiden Pharmaceuticals” contained unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol as contaminants. These toxins were responsible for the death of over 66 children – estimated by World Health Organization (W.H.O).

If looked into the official records, Maiden Pharmaceuticals was blacklisted by the Bihar government in 2011 for selling sub-standard cough syrup. The company was prosecuted by India’s Drug Regulator in 2018 for quality control violations. It failed quality control tests in Kerala in 2022 four times. Maiden Pharmaceuticals is among the 40 Indian pharma companies that Vietnam has blacklisted for exporting sub-standard drugs. Still, these companies operate freely in India, and barely do they care about the quality of the drugs they produce.

How Trustworthy Indian Medicines Are

Fake and sub-standard drugs are everywhere, regardless of the medicine brand. Trusting a medication blindly can be fatal without you even realizing that your pill is the actual culprit. It’s because when a person finds it difficult to overpower their illness, they intuitively consider their disease the main evil and never think there could be an issue in their medicines. Also, we trust our doctors blindly, whatever they prescribe, we get it without any question asked. A second opinion is indispensable, especially in severe medical cases. It ensures quality treatment. Does it mean the doctors are not reliable?

Well, not exactly! The point I want to make here is that doctors are humans, and they can also be wrong sometimes. Doubting a doctor’s intention is the last thing anyone would do; they are always dedicated to helping us get better as soon as possible. However, there are cases when doctors failed to identify the problems, leading to worsening the patients’ medical conditions.

So, now the question is how is a doctor’s misdiagnosis related to medicine quality? Let’s understand this! We always make choices when it comes to deciding what clothes we want to wear, what food we want to have, but when it comes to medications, we utterly leave it in a doctor’s hand. We literally surrender ourselves. We make conscious decisions while buying other things, then why not with medicines?

What Can We Do?

All the previously discussed substandard drug reports and fake medicine news in this write-up clearly suggest that not all medicines in India are trustworthy. Therefore, we must make prudent choices that not only ensure the quality of medicines we buy but also their affordability. One such way is to always look for the quality report of the drug you are intending to buy. In fact, buy tested substitutes of branded medicines; this can help you reduce your drug expenses by 80-90%. That’s how you can have the best quality medicines without breaking your arms & legs.

If you are wondering where you can get tested medicines at 80-90% lower prices than the market rates, SayaCare is what you need. Here, you can order your medicines online and get them delivered to your doorstep. Thank you for spending your valuable time to read this writing piece. Stay Smart, Stay Healthy!