Ranbaxy Suspends Shipments, Addresses Quality and Integrity Problems

Following the U.S. ban on all imports from Ranbaxy’s Toansa, India, facility, the drug maker has voluntarily suspended all shipments of bulk drugs from its manufacturing facilities both at Toansa and Dewas, in order to reassess quality controls at the plants.

In the meantime the company, based in New Delhi, is establishing a quality and integrity committee to “provide oversight on the company’s manufacturing and quality operations, systems, organization and integrity”, The Times (UK) reports today.

Ranbaxy’s Toansa facility was the last of the company’s plants permitted to export to the U.S., but a recent FDA inspection found it unhygienic and badly maintained.

The ban on imports from Toansa was the latest in a long line of troubles for the company. Last year the FDA imposed a similar ban on products from its Mohali plant,and the Department of Justice fined the drug maker $500m for distributing adulterated medicines in the U.S. between 2004 and 2007.