BBC Undercover Filming Exposes Indian Pharma Firm Fueling Opioid Crisis

This BBC investigation exposes Aveo Pharmaceuticals, an Indian pharmaceutical company, for manufacturing and illegally exporting unlicensed, highly addictive opioids to West Africa. The drugs, a dangerous combination of the opioid tapentadol and the muscle relaxant carisoprodol, are not approved for use anywhere in the world and pose severe health risks, including breathing difficulties, seizures, and fatal overdoses. Despite these dangers, the pills are widely available as cheap street drugs in Ghana, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire, where they are contributing to a worsening public health crisis.

In Ghana, local leaders have mobilized citizen-led task forces to combat the problem by raiding drug dealers and seizing Aveo’s pills. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, where an estimated four million people abuse opioids, authorities have been struggling to curb the crisis. Following a crackdown on the opioid painkiller tramadol in 2018, pharmaceutical companies like Aveo began supplying tapentadol-based drugs instead to evade the restrictions. Nigerian and West African officials warn that these new formulations are even more dangerous, leading to deeper addiction and more severe withdrawal symptoms.

India’s drug regulatory body claims it is supposedly committed to ensuring ‘responsible’ pharmaceutical exports. But as Aveo and other Indian firms continue to profit massively from the criminal trade, campaigners accuse regulators of essentially turning a blind eye.

To read how, in the United States, the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, maker of the highly addictive opioid drug OxyContin, has recently agreed to pay up to $7.4 billion in a settlement of lawsuits arising from the American opioid epidemic, see this news story on our website.