Quality Test Alert! Paracetamol, PAN-D, and vitamin tablets fail the quality test, raising safety concerns

Health Warning: Quality Issues Detected in Paracetamol, PAN-D, and Vitamin Tablets

Written by: Supriya Kadu

Edited by: Omkar Devadkar

Last Updated: September 28, 2024

Summary: The Central Drug Regulator released the list of medications that didn’t pass the quality test. Paracetamol and Pan-D, among the many.

The Central Drugs Standards Control Organization (CDSCO) has declared over 50 medications to be "not of standard quality," raising serious safety concerns in a monthly report. Common drugs like Pan D, paracetamol, and calcium supplements were on the list, along with easy-to-identify batch numbers and manufacturing dates.

Among the well-known pharmaceuticals included in the list were calcium supplements, vitamins, blood pressure (BP) monitors, anti-diabetic pills, anti-acid Pan-D, and paracetamol.

Hetero Drugs, Alkem Laboratories, Hetero Drugs, Unicure India Ltd., Health Biotech Ltd., Hindustan Antibiotics Limited, Pure and Cure Healthcare, Meg Life Sciences, and Life Max Cancer Laboratories are some of the companies that manufacture these drugs. These identifications are done using random sampling.

Among these, five of the drugs were classified as ‘“Spurious/Adulterated/Misbranded’ by the CDSCO. They were:

Pantacid (Pantoprazole Tablets IP)
Pulmosil (Sildenafil Injection)
Ursocol 300 (Ursodeoxych olic Acid Tablets IP)
Deflazacort Tablets (Defcort 6 Tablets)
Telma H (Telmisartan 40 mg and Hydrochlorot hiazide 12.5 mg Tablets IP)

State drug officers generate these NSQ alerts, which draw attention to the possible dangers of using substandard medications, by random monthly sampling.

Inadequate quality control, poor manufacturing techniques, and contamination during production are the reasons for failures. The issue is worsened by the inconsistent levels of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in these drugs.