More details are emerging about a Chinese pharmaceutical
manufacturer who produced a drug which killed nine people in south
China's Guangdong Province.
Xinhua has learnt the alleged fraudulent chemical dealer Wang
Guiping forged various documents including his business, drug
registration and manufacturing licenses to sell products to
pharmaceutical companies.
Wang allegedly sold one ton of the chemical diglycol claiming it
was propylene glycol to a pharmaceutical company in Heilongjiang Province. For the transaction he
used the name of the Taixing General Chemical Plant in the eastern
Jiangsu Province.?
He made a 7,500-yuan (US$937.5) profit on the 14,500-yuan sale
price according to investigations carried out by Jiangsu police and
the provincial drug administration.
The buyer, Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., produced the
medication ‘Armillarisni A’ using the fake chemical and this
resulted in the deaths of nine people who were given the drug in
the southern Guangdong Province.
Armillarisni A is administered by injection to treat acute
cholecystitis and chronic and atrophic gastritis.
However, the Qiqihar firm’s Armillarisni A product caused pain
in the alimentary canal and stomach as well as causing kidney,
liver and nerve damage, said Liao Xinbo, vice director of the
Guangdong Provincial Department of Health.
Investigations by Jiangsu police and drug administration also
found Taixing General Chemical Plant had offered Wang invoices and
allowed him to do business in its name on condition of a
one-percent return on the invoices.
However, Wang continued to trade in the name of Taixing General
Chemical Plant even after the plant had ended its allegedly illegal
partnership with him in July 2005.
Wang, 40, a junior middle school graduate who trained as a
tailor and began trading in industrial chemicals in 2004 has been
arrested by Jiangsu police.
"Wang Guiping got reckless with greed and the Taixing plant gave
him openings to pharmaceutical plants," said an anonymous official
with the Taixing Municipal Food and Drug Administration.
Cao Yongwen, director of the Qiqihar Municipal Food and Drug
Administration, told Xinhua that the Qiqihar pharmaceutical company
never identified the chemical as fake.
The company failed to test the so-called "propylene glycol" as
required under State Drug Administration regulations before
purchase nor did it cross-check the licenses provided by Wang
Guiping, said Cao.
The company's analysts realized the material was substandard but
inexplicably had still put it into production with the consent of
company executives, said a staff member who wanted to be identified
only as Wang. After perfunctory tests the company had released the
product. ?
Five company employees, a materials buyer, general manager, two
deputy factory directors in charge of technology and supply and an
analysis director, have been taken by police to Guangdong Province
for further questioning, provincial government officials said.
The fake Armillarisni A drug was sold in Guangdong for 10.5 yuan
(US$1.31) per dose while its two competitors sold at 11.68 yuan
(1.46 dollars) and 12.9 yuan (1.61 dollars), said Cai Quanmao, of
the Guangdong Provincial Department of Public Health.
Drug authorities in Guangdong Province reported on May 3 that
patients receiving the injections at the No.3 Hospital affiliated
to the Sun Yat-sen University had developed acute kidney failure
and this prompted an immediate investigation.
Premier Wen Jiabao has ordered government departments to launch
a thorough investigation into the incident and intensify
supervision and regulation of the pharmaceutical market.
The government has shut down the Qiqihar plant and banned the
sale of all its medicines. Efforts are also being made to trace and
recall drugs sold by the company.
Following the incident the government has launched a review of
pharmaceutical plants nationwide.?
(Xinhua News Agency May 24, 2006)