Caribbean Medical Supplies (CMS) has rejected claims that it has been blacklisted and that it is the company with the highest instance of attempting to deliver drugs close to the expiry date to the Ministry of Public Health.
Chief Executive Officer of CMS Davendra Rampersaud said there had to be some “confusion and mixing up of facts” since his company is not a supplier of drugs and pharmaceuticals but diagnostic products whose shelf life is different to medicines.
He explained, “Understanding this difference is significant, drugs are usually manufactured with 36 to 60 months’ shelf life compared to diagnostic products which are manufactured with eight to 12 months’ shelf life [with controls and other products as low as three months shelf life].
“For this reason, our products should not be compared to the same protocols as pharmaceutical drugs. International standards recommend that products should be accepted with 75 % of their shelf life by purchasing bodies. We have worked with the Ministry of Public Health to provide delivery schedules for all contracts with large volumes of reagents to ensure maximum use of reagents purchased.”
Responding to written questions asked by PPP/C Member of Parliament Juan Edghill, Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence had informed Parliament that CMS was listed as being the company with the most attempts of trying to supply expired drugs.
Edghill had sought to ascertain how drugs and other medical supplies were being procured and delivered in the public health sector.
In response to a question from Edghill, Lawrence informed the House that in 2016 suppliers failed in the timely delivery of more than $396 million in drugs and medical supplies for the Ministry of Public Health, while there were more than 200 instances when suppliers attempted to provide the public health system with drugs which were close to their expiry date.
Asked to identify suppliers who delivered expired or nearly expired drugs to the ministry, Lawrence identified Caribbean Medical Supplies, New GPC, Western Scientific, Global Health Care and IPA.
According to her response, CMS accounted for the largest number of these instances (more than 100), while New GPC accounted for 34 instances, Western Scientific for 12, Global Health Care for 5 and International Pharmaceutical Agency (IPA) for 1.
However, Rampersaud is asking Minister Lawrence to evaluate the information received and investigate deeper since to him it seemed “skewed to malign our company’s reputation.”
And on the issue of being blacklisted, Rampersaud produced documents showing that his company was not now nor had ever been blacklisted.
“Our company was never blacklisted and we are not blacklisted by the FDD [Government Analyst Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD)] or any other control body both locally and internationally,” he said.
The CMS head said that negative reports hurt his company’s image since it has affiliations with Becton Dickinson, Beckman Coulter, Diagnostics Automation, Diasorin (Murex), Nova Biomedical, Liofichem and many other international companies.
“We have had international companies calling us and asking us what is going on and getting the news out there that nothing is going on is our way of safeguarding our company,” Rampersaud said.
