BENGALURU: The SIT probe into the fake medicine racket has revealed that the accused had distributed nearly 15,000 vials of two spurious antibiotics Zavicefta and Emblaveo, for which Pfizer holds the rights, over the past one-and-a-half years.
Special Investigation Team (SIT) officials said the preliminary probe revealed that the accused had been operating the network since April 2025.
They allegedly filled the vials with a generic medicine instead of the genuine drug and used labels bearing the Pfizer name to make them appear genuine. The accused allegedly procured the original company labels from Turkey, where the company has a manufacturing unit.
A senior officer said they are waiting for the laboratory report to determine the chemical composition of the spurious drugs.
They have traced the network of distribution of the vials, he added.
Will correlate sales, purchases, stock they received: SIT
The police and health department officials are verifying the entire drug distribution network. “We will correlate the sales, purchases and the stock they received and dispatched. Everything will be cross-checked. The accused sold the drugs to certain entities, and the team is probing where those entities subsequently sent them. We will examine each layer of the network,” the officer said.
So far, no evidence of cancer medicines being faked has been found, but the teams will continue to investigate, he added.
High-cost antibiotics priced up to Rs 5,500-6,500 per vial
Zavicefta is a prescription antibiotic used to treat serious bacterial infections, including complicated urinary tract infections, complicated abdominal infections, hospital-acquired pneumonia and certain infections caused by multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria. Emblaveo is a prescription intravenous antibiotic used to treat serious infections, particularly those caused by multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria.