Medicines Made in India Set Off Safety Worries (NYT)

[jsr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/world/asia/medicines-made-in-india-set-off-safety-worries.html

Medicines Made in India Set Off Safety Worries
By GARDINER HARRIS | FEB. 14, 2014

NEW DELHI — India, the second-largest exporter of over-the-counter and prescription drugs to the United States, is coming under increased scrutiny by American regulators for safety lapses, falsified drug test results and selling fake medicines.

Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, arrived in India this week to express her growing unease with the safety of Indian medicines because of “recent lapses in quality at a handful of pharmaceutical firms.”

India’s pharmaceutical industry supplies 40 percent of over-the-counter and generic prescription drugs consumed in the United States, so the increased scrutiny could have profound implications for American consumers.

F.D.A. investigators are blitzing Indian drug plants, financing the inspections with some of the roughly $300 million in annual fees from generic drug makers collected as part of a 2012 law requiring increased scrutiny of overseas plants. The agency inspected 160 Indian drug plants last year, three times as many as in 2009. The increased scrutiny has led to a flood of new penalties, including half of the warning letters the agency issued last year to drug makers.

[hobbit709]

1. Do they give the same scrutiny to U.S. plants?

[Omaha Steve]

2. A late K&R!