BENGALURU: The SIT probe into the fake medicine racket has revealed that the accused had distributed nearly 15,000 vials of two spurious antibiotics Zavicefta and Emblaveo, for which Pfizer holds the rights, over the past one-and-a-half years.
Special Investigation Team (SIT) officials said the preliminary probe revealed that the accused had been operating the network since April 2025.
They allegedly filled the vials with a generic medicine instead of the genuine drug and used labels bearing the Pfizer name to make them appear genuine. The accused allegedly procured the original company labels from Turkey, where the company has a manufacturing unit.
A senior officer said they are waiting for the laboratory report to determine the chemical composition of the spurious drugs.
They have traced the network of distribution of the vials, he added.
Will correlate sales, purchases, stock they received: SIT
The police and health department officials are verifying the entire drug distribution network. “We will correlate the sales, purchases and the stock they received and dispatched. Everything will be cross-checked. The accused sold the drugs to certain entities, and the team is probing where those entities subsequently sent them. We will examine each layer of the network,” the officer said.
So far, no evidence of cancer medicines being faked has been found, but the teams will continue to investigate, he added.
High-cost antibiotics priced up to Rs 5,500-6,500 per vial
Zavicefta is a prescription antibiotic used to treat serious bacterial infections, including complicated urinary tract infections, complicated abdominal infections, hospital-acquired pneumonia and certain infections caused by multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria. Emblaveo is a prescription intravenous antibiotic used to treat serious infections, particularly those caused by multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria.
Zavicefta contains ceftazidime 2 g and avibactam 0.5 g per vial and is priced at around Rs 5,500–6,000 per vial. Emblaveo contains aztreonam 1.5 g and avibactam 0.5 g per vial and is priced at around Rs 6,000–6,500 per vial. The accused purchased material required for production of spurious drugs at a low cost and sold them as branded medicine at high prices. It is suspected that they made over profits of over Rs 10 crore in the last few months. Spurious drugs were procured from Hyderabad, Chennai, Uttarakhand and other states.
They were then filled into the vials, labelled as Pfizer products and distributed through DM Pharma. The firm is registered in the name of Balasubramani from Chennai and Priyanka, wife of alleged kingpin R Prashanth Babu, who hails from Shivamogga and worked as a medical representative, the officer said.
The medicines were then allegedly supplied to Krupa Pharma, owned by Veeresh Kumar Jain, which further distributed them to other pharmaceutical firms and hospitals along with genuine medicines to avoid suspicion, the police said. To manufacture the spurious drugs, Prashanth allegedly rented a farmhouse near Bidadi. The SIT has arrested seven persons in connection with the case so far.
Spurious vs adulterated drugs
As per the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, a spurious drug is one that is presented in a manner intended to deceive people into believing that it is a genuine drug. For instance, a different substance may be filled into a vial and sold using a fake label of a genuine drug. An adulterated drug is one whose contents, quality, purity or manufacturing or storage conditions have been compromised making it unsafe. A drug can potentially be classified as both spurious and adulterated, depending on the circumstances and the findings of laboratory tests, the officials said.
