Drug regulatory authorities severely cracked down on illegal and criminal activities of manufacturing and selling counterfeit and inferior drugs for treating Covid-19 infection.

　　Cctv newsNational Medical Products Administration website reported on January 16th that in order to thoroughly implement the relevant requirements of the Central Leading Group for Response to Epidemic Situation and the State Council Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism on epidemic prevention and control, and effectively ensure the quality and safety of public medication, since the COVID-19 epidemic, National Medical Products Administration has deployed local drug regulatory authorities to continuously strengthen the quality supervision of drugs and equipment related to epidemic prevention and control, and intensify the crackdown on illegal and criminal activities of manufacturing and selling drugs and equipment related to epidemic.

　　Among them, in view of the recent clues of illegal sales of Covid-19 infection drugs with unknown sources in the market, drug regulatory authorities in many places have adopted a combination of online monitoring and offline mopping, innovated regulatory ideas, dug deep into the source of the case and strictly investigated the illegality. Under the unified command, the local drug regulatory authorities and the local public security departments jointly enforced the law, and some criminal gangs and dens have been smashed, and a number of counterfeit Paxlovid (combined packaging of Nimatvir tablets and ritonavir tablets) and unapproved imported drugs have been seized on the spot during the net-closing operation. After inspection, some products seized did not contain effective pharmaceutical ingredients or illegally added other pharmaceutical ingredients, which was suspected of violating the provisions of Article 141 of the Criminal Law of People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the crime of selling counterfeit drugs. At present, the case is being handled by the public security department according to law.

　　In order to thoroughly investigate risks, eliminate hidden dangers, and effectively protect the public’s drug demand and drug safety, National Medical Products Administration organized the national drug regulatory authorities to further strengthen the monitoring, mopping, inspection and case investigation of the manufacture and sale of counterfeit and inferior drugs for treating Covid-19 infection. If a suspected crime is found, it will be transferred to the public security and judicial organs according to law. At the same time, National Medical Products Administration is promoting the research, development and listing of therapeutic drugs in Covid-19 according to laws and regulations to serve the overall situation of epidemic prevention and control.