Indian migraine medicine is stopped after blood test cheating
A medicine for migraines may no longer be sold in Norway after an Indian firm cheated on the results of blood tests.
The drug Eletriptan Mylan has been given a temporary ban in Norway, writes Dagens Medicine.
– It is rare and extremely regrettable that this is happened, said Dr. Sigurd Hortemo of the Norwegian Medicines Agency for the online newspaper.
European Medicines Agency (EMA) has detected cheating by Semler Research Centre Private Ltd. in India, which has been studied alongside a number of pharmaceutical companies.
The firm has cheated with blood test results. Blood samples are part of the approval of so-called generics, drugs that will have the same effect as an original drug. Healthy volunteers receive at different times both the original and the copy, and then the blood samples are compared. The Indian firm should have used the same blood sample in both cases, and thus achieved similar results.
In Norway there is only one drug that is affected. Eletriptan Mylan used in short-term treatment of migraines.
– The positive side of this is that it shows that the inspection authorities are thorough and will reveal cheating. The sad side is that this is an example of someone willing to cheat, says Hortemo.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
