Ranbaxy halts production at two plants

India's largest drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories Tuesday said it has halted temporarily drug ingredient production at two of its facilities in the country as a "precautionary measure".

The two factories, located in Toansa in Punjab and Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), the key components to medicines.

"We are currently examining processes and controls at all our API manufacturing and quality units. This action has led to temporarily putting on hold shipments from our API facilities of the Toansa and Dewas plants," the company informed the stock exchanges.

The decision was a "proactive and precautionary measure" to better assess and review the processes and controls, company secretary Sushil Patawary said.

"We will resume shipments after reassuring ourselves about the processes and controls at these facilities," he said.

The Japanese Daiichy Shankyo controlled Ranbaxy has come under scrutiny of the US Food and Drug Administration for lax manufacturing norms.

The FDA has barred imports from the Toansa facility, making it the fourth of Ranbaxy's five Indian plants to be prohibited from sending medicines to the US.

The company was barred from exporting products to the US from the Dewas facility in 2008.