Haffkines - Production Stopped
The Maharashtra State Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ordered the state owned Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd to stop production of drugs except its oral polio vaccine (OPV), due to non compliance of revised Schedule M of the drugs and cosmetics act.
A month back, the FDA had issued a notice to Haffkine after conducting a thorough inspection. Haffkine's licence was cancelled exactly 30 days after the notice was issued. Production has stopped since then.
All Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and state-run hospitals are likely to be hit by the move, as Haffkine is the major supplier of snake antivenom, antitoxins and seras, anti-scorpion venom serum, diphtheria antitoxin, tetanus antitoxin and bacterial vaccines such as diphtheria tetanus pertussis (DTP) vaccine IP, tetanus toxoid (TT) IP, diphtheria tetanus (DT) vaccine IP and plague vaccine IP.
Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd was the first in the country to successfully develop indigenous oral polio vaccine (OPV). Initially set up as Plague Research Laboratory at Mumbai, it was later renamed as Haffkine Institute in 1925. In order to expand the production activities and to meet the growing demand for medicines and life saving drugs, Haffkine Institute was bifurcated by the state government in 1975 and the production activities were entrusted to Haffkine Bio-Pharmaceutical Corporation Ltd. Since then, the company has been playing a pioneering role in the development and production of a wide range of bacterial and viral vaccines.
Steps are being taken by the authorities to upgrade the facilities and hopefully the order should be revoked. Otherwise it is the patients and the health care providers who would suffer the most.