Indian Express
30 March 2010
Chandigarh, India

Bristol Myers Squibbs says R K Distributors not authorised to sell medicine The Delhi–based company say their blood cancer medicine cannot be sold in the open market. They said a legal notice was also issued RK Distributors asking them to stop representing itself as the firm’s distributors
IN A fresh twist to the Command Hospital medicine scam, the nation–wide distributors of ‘sprycil’ (dastanib) a medicine for blood cancer treatment has said the medicine could not be sold in open market and RK Distributors of Phase–1 Industrial Area, Chandigarh, was never its authorised distributor.

This was stated by the distributors, Bristol Myers Squibbs, Delhi, in a statement filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) by Dr Pradeep Joshi.

Bristol Myers Squibbs also said it had written two letters to Command Hospital, Chandimandir, on March 25 and April 15, 2009 clearly mentioning the aforesaid position. It had also published news about this on its website and issued a legal notice to RK Distributors on February 8 asking it to stop representing itself as authorised distributors for the com pany and reveal the source from which it had procured the medicine for supply to the Command Hospital.

In their reply before the High Court, the Army Authorities had said they had earlier also inquired into similar complaints but did not find any irregularity in the purchase of the medicine.

In his PIL, the petitioner had alleged that Major General Shamsher Singh was procuring fake supply bills for purchase of tablets of Sprycel (DASATINIB).

The modus operandi of the Major General, as per allegations levelled in the PIL, was that he had been placing supply orders on RK Distributors for purchase of four to seven tablets of the medicine in order to avoid seeking permission from his superiors.