Director General of DCA Shahanwaz Qasim noted that practitioners must purchase medicines only from licensed dealers with proper documentation and maintain detailed registers of all issued medicines.
Published Dec 12, 2025 | 7:47 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 12, 2025 | 7:47 PM
Fertility clinic. (iStock)
Synopsis: Recent seizure of medicines by drug control authorities in Telangana from an unlicensed fertility centre underscores persistent challenges in ensuring medical establishments remain focused on patient care rather than commercial drug sales. Medical establishments exist to diagnose, treat, and care for patients. However, when enforcement agencies frequently encounter clinics selling medicines without the required documents.
Drug control authorities in Telangana seized medicines worth ₹5.82 lakh from an unlicensed fertility centre, underscoring persistent challenges in ensuring medical establishments remain focused on patient care rather than commercial drug sales.
The raid at Mythri Sri Fertility Centre in Hanamkonda revealed systematic violations of pharmaceutical regulations, with officers discovering 35 varieties of medicines, including steroids and hormone preparations, stored without proper licensing, documentation, or temperature controls.
The case pointed to a recurring enforcement challenge: Whilst medical practitioners are entitled to dispense medicines to their own patients under Schedule K of the Drugs Rules, that exemption comes with strict conditions designed to prevent clinics from effectively operating as unlicensed pharmacies.
“The Act permits qualified medical practitioners to stock medicines for their own patients, but only under specific conditions,” drug inspector J Kiran Kumar, who led the raid, told South First. “They can keep only limited quantities, strictly for dispensing to their own patients, not for open sale.”
The distinction proved crucial. Investigators found no purchase bills from authorised dealers, no patient dispensing records, and temperature-sensitive hormones and steroids stored in iron racks without climate control, all indicators that the facility had crossed the line from legitimate medical practice into unauthorised pharmaceutical retail.
Medical establishments exist to diagnose, treat, and care for patients. However, when enforcement agencies investigate complaints or conduct routine inspections, they frequently encounter a different reality: Clinics maintaining substantial medicine inventories without the licensing, record-keeping, or storage standards required of legitimate pharmaceutical distributors.
The Hanamkonda centre operated with only a provisional registration from the district medical officer, valid for six months to one year, but possessed no drug licence whatsoever. When officers requested documentation for the medicines on site, none could be produced.
“These are not minor technical breaches,” authorities emphasised. “Temperature-sensitive medications stored improperly can lose efficacy or become harmful. Lack of purchase records and dispensing logs makes it impossible to track medicines from manufacture to patient, creating opportunities for substandard or counterfeit drugs to enter the supply chain.”
The seized stock included hormones, antibiotics, supplements, and pregnancy-related medications, pharmaceutical categories that require particularly careful handling and distribution oversight.
Samples have been sent for laboratory analysis, with additional charges possible if quality standards are not met.
Director General of DCA Shahanwaz Qasim noted in a statement following the raid that practitioners must purchase medicines only from licensed dealers with proper documentation, maintain detailed registers of all issued medicines, including patient names, quantities, batch numbers, and dates, and preserve those records for at least two years.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
