The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: An Indian pharmaceutical company is at the centre of controversy after a BBC investigation exposed its unlicensed manufacturing and export of opioids to West Africa.
Mumbai-based Aveo Pharmaceuticals is reportedly making a range of pills under different names and branding, all containing a combination of the same opioid (tapentadol) and muscle relaxant (carisoprodol), that are not licensed for use in any country.
The pills have fuelled a major public health crisis in countries like Ghana, Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire, the BBC Eye investigation has revealed.
Following the BBC report, Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a show-cause notice to Aveo pharmaceuticals, news agency PTI reported. A team of drug inspectors from the Union and state government also raided Aveo’s premises last week. The company has denied allegations of any wrongdoing.
‘It is business these days’
In a secretly-recorded footage of an executive at an Aveo factory in Mumbai, Vinod Sharma, the director of the company, can be seen talking about the products shipped to West Africa. When the BBC’s undercover operative told Sharma that he planned to sell the pills to 16 or 17 year olds, Sharma said “ok”. He then added that the pills are very harmful but “it is business these days”. He said that if an individual takes two or three pills at the same time, they can “relax” and get “high”.
According to the report, Aveo Pharmaceuticals, along with a sister company called Westfin International, is shipping these tablets to Ghana and other West African countries. The easy availability of these pills at low prices has caused many young people in these countries to fall prey to addiction.
Nigeria has emerged as the main market for these pills.
The Chairman of Nigeria’s Drug and Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig Gen Mohammed Buba Marwa, told the BBC, opioids are “devastating our youths, our families, it’s in every community in Nigeria”.
In 2018, the Nigerian government cracked on such imports.
The government banned the sale of an opioid painkiller called tramadol without prescription, and imposed strict limits on its maximum dose. Simultaneously, the Indian authorities tightened export regulations on tramadol.
Soon after this, Aveo Pharmaceuticals began to export a new pill based on tapentadol, an even stronger opioid, mixed with the muscle-relaxant carisoprodol.
According to experts cited in the report, the new drug is more dangerous than the tramadol it has replaced.
The second ingredient in the pill, carisoprodol, has been banned in Europe because of its addictive nature. When mixed with tapentadol, the withdrawal is even more severe, the report said.
Pharmaceutical companies in India cannot legally manufacture or export unlicensed drugs unless they meet the standards of the importing country. The combination of drugs mentioned in this report are unlicensed in Ghana, yet Aveo ships these pills in violation of Indian law.
The Indian drugs regulator, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, is in talks with regulators in affected countries and said that it is closely monitoring the exports, adding that it will take swift action against any firm involved in malpractice.
A CDSCO circular dated February 21, 2025 also withdrew export NOC (no objection certificate) for all unapproved combinations of tapentadol and carisoprodol.