Novartis, German chemical distributor named in controversial supplies to Syria

By PharmaCompass

2019-07-04

Impressions: 250 Article

Swiss drug major Novartis found itself caught in a controversy around ingredients that it shipped to Syria in 2014 that NGOs say could have been used to make sarin gas, an extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound used as a chemical weapon.

There were also reports about German chemical distributor Brenntag, which sold diethylamine and isopropanol to Syrian drugmaker Mediterranean Pharmaceutical Industries (MPI) in 2014.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in March that government forces had perpetrated 32 of 37 chemical attacks it had reported during the Syrian war, including the use of chlorine and sarin. NGOs have also reported their use in the war there. However, the Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons.

Brenntag said its Swiss subsidiary (Brenntag Schweizerhall AG) supplied the chemicals (diethylamine and isopropanol) in 2014 in line with the relevant laws and regulations, to MPI to produce a pain killer. Brenntag has also denied circumventing EU export regulations on restricted chemicals.

Back in 2014, Novartis Consumer Health had an agreement with MPI to make OTC products. Novartis supplied the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) to MPI for producing a pain killer — Voltaren Emulgel. Novartis said this was done according to all the required laws and regulations. Novartis Consumer Health was divested to GlaxoSmithKline in 2015.

Novartis said while it supplied the API for the product in 2014, it was MPI’s responsibility to procure other ingredients such as isopropanol or diethylamine, and Novartis played no role in that.

In 2014, experts from the UN and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) removed or destroyed 1,180 tonnes of declared toxic agents and precursor chemicals in Syria, under a deal reached with the Assad government, after a sarin attack near Damascus.

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