Pakistan officials are investigating two local distributors of Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche’s Avastin cancer drug after 12 diabetic patients in Punjab went blind when they were injected with illegally-created versions of the drug.
Javed Akram, the province’s Minister for Specialised Health, said police were questioning two men they believe to be the medication’s distributors in the state.
The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has since instructed the importer to recall the suspected batches of the Avastin 100mg injection, which it said had been manufactured illegally.
Avastin is approved in more than 130 countries for the treatment of several types of cancer, reports Reuters.
“"Roche strongly condemns this criminal act of counterfeiting and is doing everything in its power to co-operate with the authorities …In Pakistan, the vision loss from Avastin has been identified as a case of contamination by a third party supplier,” the company said.
The regulator said in the cases concerned, Avastin had been used off-label, meaning outside its approved use, to treat diabetes-related eye conditions.
When used at much lower doses, the medication is similar to eye drug Lucentis and is used in many countries as a low-cost option to treat certain blindness-causing conditions.
Roche said Avastin “is not approved for any use in the eye”.
Alam Sher, Punjab’s deputy drug controller who filed the police complaint against the distributors, told Reuters that some companies buy Avastin and repackage it in smaller doses to make it more affordable for patients.
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