Ex-employees of Serum Inst booked for stealing vaccine info

Two former employees of the Serum Institute of India here have been booked for breach of trust for allegedly stealing confidential information about a vaccine before quitting the company, police said.
Police identified the accused as Dr Manoj Kumar Chhikara and Dr Rakesh Rana, who worked as assistant managers (R&D) and Quality Control, respectively.
No arrests have been made in case yet, they said.
The two are now working with Delhi-based MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories.
"Both of them were working on the vaccine called 'MenAfriVac', however, in 2011, Rana left the job and in 2013 Chhikara too resigned from the Serum Institute of India," inspector Anjum Bagwan of Hadapsar Police station said.

"The suspects, who were privy to the confidential details of vaccine, filed for patent on the basis of these details on behalf of their present employer and put their names as researchers in the patent application," Bagwan said.

When the Serum Institute officials filed an online patent application for their vaccine, they found another application with same specifications and names of these two scientists as researchers.
"When Chhikara and Rana were working on the project at Serum, they had signed a contract that they would not divulge information outside but they allegedly violated the term after leaving the Institute," the police officer said.

Police yesterday registered a case under IPC (Indian Penal Code) sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), and provisions of the Information Technology Act.
Serum Institute of India, which belongs to the Cyrus Poonawala Group, is a producer of diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, BCG, r-hepatitis B, measles, mumps and rubella vaccines.