The Little Known Shady Face of Indian Pharma with Dinesh Thakur

My guest today is Dinesh Thakur. Dinesh Thakur trained as a chemical engineer before becoming a whistleblower against the pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy. While working at Ranbaxy, he witnessed extensive data fraud and reported this wrongdoing. His actions led Ranbaxy to plead guilty in an American court in 2013 to violating US law. The company paid a $500 million dollar penalty as part of its guilty plea. For his whistleblowing efforts, he received the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage and the ACFE Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award. Since 2014, he has advocated reforming India's outdated Drugs & Cosmetics Act from 1940. He founded an advocacy group called Citizens for Affordable, Safe & Effective Medicine (CASEM) to campaign for these reforms. Dinesh also established the Thakur Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds public health research and health journalism in India. He serves as the Foundation's President.
In this episode I talk to Dinesh about the work of Y K Hameid and Cipla, How india became the generic drug manufacturing capital of the world and pros and cons of it. We also talk about the Ranbaxy case and few other important cases which expose the shady side of big pharma companies, the lack of regulations for clinical trials in India and many more things. So stay tuned to the episode. Do show your support to this show by subscribing on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and buy me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/shortcastovercoffee

More about Dinesh

• https://dineshthakur.com/about-2/
• https://twitter.com/d_s_thakur?lang=en
• https://magazine.unh.edu/issue/winter-2021/the-whistleblower/
• https://www.wellesley.edu/albright/about/faculty/dinesh-thakur
• https://www.reuters.com/article/india-pharma-whistleblower/pharma-crusader-dinesh-thakur-takes-indias-drug-regulators-to-court-idUSKCN0W90C8