The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion is is­su­ing an alert for batch­es of two cough syrups man­u­fac­tured by an In­di­an com­pa­ny that were found to be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.

The con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed prod­ucts, Am­bronol syrup and DOK-1 Max syrup, were iden­ti­fied in Uzbek­istan and re­port­ed to the WHO on Dec. 22 of last year. Ac­cord­ing to the WHO, an analy­sis con­duct­ed by Uzbek­istan’s Min­istry of Health iden­ti­fied “un­ac­cept­able amounts of di­eth­yl­ene gly­col and /or eth­yl­ene gly­col.” The WHO lists Mar­i­on Biotech, based in Ut­tar Pradesh, In­dia, as the man­u­fac­tur­er.

Eth­yl­ene gly­col is com­mon­ly used in an­tifreeze, while di­eth­yl­ene gly­col, or DEG, is main­ly used in brake flu­id and cook­ing fu­el, among oth­er us­es. DEG has al­so been used as a coun­ter­feit for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal-grade glyc­erin for years, ac­cord­ing to the New York Times. The WHO warned that con­sump­tion of the chem­i­cals can re­sult in se­ri­ous in­jury or death, in­clud­ing ab­dom­i­nal pain, headache, al­tered men­tal state or acute kid­ney in­jury, among oth­er ail­ments.

The WHO has re­quest­ed that ar­eas like­ly to be af­fect­ed by the con­t­a­m­i­na­tions ramp up their sur­veil­lance with­in sup­ply chains, and re­port back if they dis­cov­er any­thing. It al­so urged man­u­fac­tur­ers of syrups that con­tain glyc­erin to test for the pres­ence of con­t­a­m­i­nants.

Last month, Uzbek­istan’s Min­istry of Health said in a state­ment that 18 chil­dren had died af­ter tak­ing DOK-1 Max. Par­ents had in­cor­rect­ly used the drug in those in­stances, ac­cord­ing to CN­BC TV18 in In­dia, which first re­port­ed the news. Ut­tar Pradesh sus­pend­ed Mar­i­on’s man­u­fac­tur­ing li­cense ear­li­er this month, af­ter the com­pa­ny did not re­spond to a “show cause no­tice,” ac­cord­ing to an­oth­er CN­BC re­port.

Mar­i­on’s web­site is cur­rent­ly down, in ad­di­tion to its par­ent com­pa­ny Emenox Group. End­points News has been un­able to reach the com­pa­ny on the mat­ter, but will up­date the sto­ry ac­cord­ing­ly. CN­BC re­port­ed on Thurs­day that Ut­tar Pradesh’s Food Safe­ty & Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion De­part­ment is con­duct­ing an in­spec­tion of Mar­i­on’s site.

End­points al­so reached out to the WHO and Uzbek­istan’s Min­istry of Health for fur­ther com­ment, but didn’t get a re­sponse by press time.

An­oth­er In­di­an man­u­fac­tur­er, Maid­en Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, re­cent­ly came un­der fire af­ter chil­dren in Gam­bia died af­ter tak­ing its cough syrup prod­ucts.

Boehringer Ingelheim uncorked some positive results suggesting that Spevigo can help prevent flare-ups in patients with a severe form of psoriasis, months after the drug was approved to treat existing flares.

Spevigo, an IL-36R antibody also known as spesolimab, met its primary and a key secondary endpoint in the Phase IIb EFFISAYIL 2 trial in patients with generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP), Boehringer announced on Monday. While the company is keeping the hard numbers under wraps until later this year, it said in a news release that it anticipates sharing the results with regulators.

AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi won an appeals court win on Monday, as the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that the companies cannot be forced to provide 340B-discounted drugs purchased by hospitals from an unlimited number of community and specialty pharmacies.

“Legal duties do not spring from silence,” the decision says as the court makes clear that the federal government’s interpretation of the “supposed requirement” that the 340B program compels drugmakers to supply their discounted drugs to an unlimited number of contract pharmacies is not correct, noting:

A US appeals court has ruled against Johnson & Johnson’s use of bankruptcy to deal with mounting talc lawsuits, deciding that doing so would “create a legal blind spot.”

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous bankruptcy court decision on Monday, calling for the dismissal of a Chapter 11 filing by J&J’s subsidiary LTL Management.

Faced with more than 38,000 lawsuits alleging its talc-based products caused cancer, J&J spun its talc liabilities into a separate company called LTL Management back in October 2021 and filed for bankruptcy, a controversial move colloquially referred to as a “Texas two-step” bankruptcy. Claimants argued that the strategy is a misuse of the US bankruptcy code — and on Monday, a panel of judges agreed.

New York City is investing $20 million in biotech this year in the form of a 50,000-square-foot “innovation space” at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, complete with offices, research laboratories and events and programming space to grow biotech startups and companies.

Mayor Eric Adams said during his State of The City Address last Thursday that there will be an “emphasis” on making more opportunities for women and people of color to further diversify the industry. The City first reported the news.