The CBI last month arrested Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) joint drug controller S Eswara Reddy and
Biologics head of national regulatory affairs L Praveen Kumar among the five accused in the case. Currently, they are in judicial custody.
The CBI had petitioned the court last month seeking voice samples of the accused to compare them with recorded conversations.
A spokesperson for Biocon Biologics, in a news release, said: “Whilst we are disappointed that bail was not granted to our employee, L Praveen Kumar, we have complete faith in the Indian judicial system. We will continue to extend our full cooperation to the investigative agencies and take appropriate steps as per law.”
The company, a subsidiary of drug maker Biocon, had denied any wrongdoing and said last month that all its product approvals were legitimate and backed by science and clinical data.
ET on June 22 reported that the CBI was looking into alleged involvement of several pharma companies in bribing CDSCO officials through a conduit to get their files processed favourably.
It had arrested Guljit Sethi, director of Delhi-based company Bioinnovat Research Services. He was accused of facilitating bribes to a CDSCO official to favour files of Biocon Biologics and other companies, people in the know had told ET. Dinesh Dua, a business partner of Sethi who is accused of being a middleman, had also been arrested.
The accused were earlier this month produced before a local CBI court which had granted only one day’s custodial interrogation.
The agency has alleged that Sethi conspired with Kumar and other executives of Biocon Biologics to pay a bribe of ₹9 lakh to Reddy for “favourably processing three files” related to the company’s insulin aspart injection.
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