Drug dealers push fake medicine

On 16 March 2024, New Delhi Police arrested Neeraj Chauhan and others for selling fake anti-cancer drugs to patients at a hospital in a suburb of the Indian capital.

The Indian media reported they were filling empty vials of expensive drugs with fake ingredients for which they charged up to INR300,000. They ran the racket in collusion with hospital staff, drug dealers, pharmacists, and brokers.

Here in Nepal, the family that lost its mother two years ago to oesophageal cancer was shocked by the news. They had ordered a medication for cancer from the same Neeraj Chauhan in Delhi. 

The woman’s daughter told us her mother was treated between 2021-2023 at Nepal Mediciti Hospital by a team including oncologist Pankaj Barman, who is also Indian and allegedly put her in touch with Neeraj Chauhan.

Barman’s team at Mediciti had treated the woman with chemotherapy, followed by radiotherapy at Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital. She was readmitted to Mediciti on 5 February 2022 where Barman and another doctor, Vijay Sah, put her on Nivolumab, an immunotherapy drug, among others at various stages of treatment.

She was in remission for a while before the cancer came back. The family reached out to Barman and Sah after the relapse, who advised another immunotherapy drug called Pembrolizumab, sold under the brand name Keytruda.

The daughter was told the drug was not available in Nepal because it was very expensive and needed temperature control for storage. Barman is then said to have told the family about Neeraj Chauhan, who also supplied drugs at a cheaper rate to other Mediciti patients. 

The family purchased the drug, and started administering it to their mother, but her health deteriorated and a month later she died on 9 February 2023. 

Believing that they tried their best to save their mother, but she eventually died of a complex illness, the grieving family moved back to everyday life. A year later, the daughter chanced upon a news item in the Indian Express news about Chauhan’s arrest.

Was the medicine they had ordered for their mother from Chauhan also a fake? This question haunted the family, and they started to investigate the drug and the company.

When they went to the Department of Drug Administration (DDA), they found that Keytruda was not even registered in Nepal when it was prescribed to their mother.

The daughter opted for legal remedy and filed a case at the Lalitpur District Court against Mediciti, the doctors Barman and Sah and Neeraj Chauhan as defendants demanding a compensation of NPR70 million. 

Counterfeit drugs is a major problem worldwide, and Nepal is affected because it borders two of the biggest sources of fake medicines. Domestic production now meets half of Nepal's needs, but even here quality control is lacking with some manufacturers. 

Mediciti Response

Earlier this year, Mediciti Hospital filed a response at the Lalitpur District Court through its lawyer Manju Phuyal. It alleged that while the woman was indeed at Medicti, the family had tried to conceal that the patient was also treated at Paras Health in India in 2021.

It also states that drugs not registered in Nepal have been used for treatment, since the law allows a doctor to recommend medicines essential for a patient, if a special permission is granted by the DDA.  

However, the department does not appear to have approved the use of Keytruda for the concerned patient.

Mediciti also argued that there is no proof that the person mentioned in the news is the same Neeraj Chauhan who sold the medicine for the patient.

Raj Rana, Medical Superintendent of Mediciti says the two doctors left the hospital voluntarily. Rana added, “Since it was a recommendation made by the doctor, the hospital was not responsible.”

The Nepal Medical Council has launched an investigation and taken steps against Barman for practicing without renewing his license. Foreign citizens must apply for registration with the council every year, but Barman had not. The Council has also written to Chitwan Medical College where Barman now works. Sah has not been investigated.