If you have ever taken any medication, it's an essential read.
I work in the same industry, and I know that most of the drug manufacturing in India and China is essentially shit with no QC, but never knew the situation is so bad.
The book primarily focuses on Ranbaxy, which basically sold drugs with no or little API in them for well over 40 years in multiple countries, but then it touches over other companies too, like Dr Reddy's, Glenmark, Zydus etc and the kind of shitshow FDA has seen at their plants. Have personally experienced multiple instances when generics (rather branded generics) would just not work, and having moved to a brand name drug solved the issue in days (most notable example being I've never found any brand of Clarithromycin to work adequately in most of my patients except Claribid (made by Pfizer), to the extent I have to warn them not to change it to any other brand/generic). I stopped using most branded generics (i.e. Indian/Chinese manufactured variants) about 4-5 years ago for my family members, except the superstar drugs (like Telma for Glenmark, which is their flagship brand), but now when I think about some of the symptoms my mom and dad sometimes experience, I do think it can be due to erratic release of the API in blood due to no QC by manufacturing sites. Time to change them to costlier branded versions.
The situation is worsening as almost all generic MNCs have moved their production to India or China, with almost no regulatory oversight. Many of the times, even the MNCs have no clue as to what is happening at the plant. Scary.
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