KARACHI — The Drug Testing Laboratory in Karachi has officially issued a critical public health alert after declaring nine essential medicines used in the treatment of cancer as fake, counterfeit, or severely substandard. According to comprehensive testing conducted by the Sindh Drug Testing Laboratory, several of the analyzed batches completely lacked the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) required to halt the growth of malignant cancer cells, rendering the expensive treatments entirely ineffective. The targeted alert identifies specific formulations, including Cyclophosphamide 50mg, Sorafenib 200mg, Arimidex 1mg, Lenalidomide 10mg, Leukeran 2mg, Lenvatinib 10mg, Nintedanib 150mg, Lenvaxen 4mg, and Gefimed 250mg.
Speaking to the media, the Director of the Sindh Drug Testing Laboratory, Syed Adnan Rizvi, revealed that the seized products did not carry mandatory registration numbers from the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP). This regulatory absence strongly indicates that the spurious batches were actively smuggled into the country or distributed through illicit black-market channels. Rizvi highlighted that the laboratory had previously intercepted unregistered medical supplies circulating across the province. He warned that using counterfeit oncology drugs poses catastrophic risks to patients, as undergoing physically demanding treatments with missing active ingredients allows the life-threatening disease to progress entirely unchecked.
