A special CBI court on July 19 rejected the bail applications of Joint Drug Controller S Eswara Reddy, Biocon Biologics' Associate Vice President L Praveen Kumar and three others in an alleged bribery case.
The court has allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to collect voice sample specimens of all the five accused as part of the probe. The samples will be compared by the agency officials with the recorded conversations.
Biocon Biologics, in a statement, said it was "disappointed" that its official could not be released on bail by the court.
"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," a spokesperson of the company said.
The lawyer who appeared for Kumar claimed before the court that there is no evidence of payment being made by him.
The CBI had on June 21 arrested Reddy, Kumar, Dinesh Dua, director at Synergy Network India Private Limited, who allegedly gave a bribe to Reddy; Guljit Sethi, an alleged conduit of Biocon Biologics; and assistant drug inspector Animesh Kumar.
The federal agency has alleged that a bribe, amounting to Rs 4 lakh, was offered to waive the phase-3 clinical trial of the Insulin Aspart injection, produced by Biocon Biologics, news agency PTI had reported.
Reddy, posted at the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) in New Delhi, and Dua were caught during a trap operation while the alleged bribe exchange was going on, the agency officials had told news agency PTI.
Reddy had attended the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on May 18, 2022 and supported the waiver of phase 3 clinical trial for Insulin Aspart injection, the CBI has reportedly alleged.
Biocon Biologics, which has rejected the allegations, said the SEC on May 18 noted that the company had conducted phase 1 and phase 3 trials with Aspart in Germany and the United States, and based on the results of this global trial, Aspart has been granted marketing authorisation by European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Health Canada.
"Biocon Biologics follows due regulatory process for all our product approvals by the DCGI. The entire application process in India is online and all meeting minutes can be found on the website of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO)," the company said in a statement issued on June 21.
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