BENGALURU: India’s top biopharmaceutical company, Biocon Biologics, on Tuesday denied allegations that they paid a Rs 4 lakh bribe to Joint Drugs Controller S Eswara Reddy to waive phase-three clinical trial of Insulin Aspart injection. Insulin Aspart is Biocin Biologics’ underdevelopment product.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case of criminal conspiracy and corruption against Reddy and nabbed him on Monday.
“We deny the bribery allegations made in certain media stories. All our product approvals are legitimate & backed by science & clinical data. We follow due regulatory process for all our product approvals by DCGI,” the statement issued by Biocon Biologics – a subsidiary of Kiran Majumder Shaw-led Biocon – said.
We deny the bribery allegations made in certain media stories. All our product approvals are legitimate & backed by science & clinical data. We follow due regulatory process for all our product approvals by DCGI.
We are co-operating with the investigation agency. pic.twitter.com/aRKeI2hNvQ— Biocon Biologics (@BioconBiologics) June 21, 2022
“The entire application process in India is online and all meeting minutes are in the public domain. We are cooperating with the investigation agency,” it added.
The CBI spokesperson RC Joshi on Monday had said that along with Reddy, Synergy Network India Private Limited director Dinesh Dua was also arrested for giving the bribe.
The agency also carried out searches at 11 locations in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Bihar’s Patna, and the tech city of Bengaluru where Biocon’s headquarters is situated. “The searches led to the recovery of incriminating documents/articles,” the CBI said.
The CBI has registered an FIR in which, along with Reddy and Dua, it has named Guljit Sethi aka Guljit Chaudhary, Director of Delhi-based Bioinnovat Research Services Private Limited, L Praveen Kumar, Associate Vice-President and Head-National Regulatory Affairs (NRA) of Bengaluru-based Biocon Biologics Limited, Animesh Kumar, Assistant Drug Inspector (ADI), CDSCO New Delhi and other unknown officials of CDSCO.
Joshi said Dua agreed to pay a bribe amount of Rs 9 lakh to Reddy for favourably processing three files of Biocon and also for recommending “Insulin Aspart Injection” to the Subject Expert Committee (SEC).
“CBI laid a trap wherein the JDC of CDSCO was caught while accepting a bribe of Rs 4 lakh from Dua. Dua was also caught,” he added.