World's biggest abortion pill maker has a dark India link it might not be able to shake
abortion pills, serving women from India to Mexico. The Washington DC-based nonprofit says it provides high-quality medicines, condoms and other reproductive health products at affordable prices. But almost one-fifth of the 30 million products DKT distributes annually for abortions and postpartum hemorrhage prevention come from an Indian company with a record of making substandard medicine.
More than 30 samples of drugs made by Delhi-based Synokem Pharmaceuticals Ltd. — including generic abortion pills, an antibiotic and anti-seizure medicines — have failed quality tests conducted by Indian regulators and public health researchers since 2018, according to government records and data reviewed by Bloomberg News. The samples contained impurities, lacked the right amount of active ingredient or failed to meet other international standards designed to ensure that medicine is safe and effective, the records show.
Synokem abortion pills haven’t been linked to any deaths or serious injuries. But the company’s product failures, all detected after the drugs had been sold to pharmacies and other distributors, suggest its internal quality assurance system is not working, medical experts consulted about the data told Bloomberg. Since drugs like abortion medications are typically made by mixing ingredients in batches that can produce 100,000 to 1 million pills at a time, Synokem’s failed samples, including one with as little as 27% of the active ingredient, raise concerns about hundreds of thousands of other pills from the same batches.
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