Ahmedabad civic body suspends 9 doctors over alleged irregularities in clinical trials income

Time of India

23-04-2025

Ahmedabad: The
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation
(AMC) has suspended nine doctors, including an associate professor of the civic body-run medical college, following allegations of irregularities in the income generated from
clinical trials
at a municipal hospital, officials said. Instead of forming an 'Ethics Committee' as mandated under the law, these doctors had set up their own committee and conducted clinical trials, a senior official of the hospital said.
The AMC initiated an inquiry after
Congress corporator
Rajshree Kesari on Sunday alleged that at least three patients lost their lives at the AMC-run
V S Hospital
in four years due to illegal clinical trials. Kesari, a Congress corporator from Chandkheda ward in Ahmedabad, claimed that though 500 patients underwent clinical trials at the hospital in four years, the head of the clinical trial department, Dr Devang Rana and others siphoned off the entry fee amount paid by four pharma companies and did not give anything to the hospital.
Gujarat Health Minister Rushikesh Patel on Monday said, "Following a preliminary probe, the AMC has suspended Rana and eight other doctors who were part of the clinical trial team at the hospital." Dr Rana, an MD, used to serve as an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology of
NHL Municipal Medical College
, and was appointed as the head of clinical trials in V S Hospital in 2021. While Rana was a permanent employee, eight other doctors were hired by the AMC on contractual basis, he said. "Usually, income generated from clinical trials is divided into two parts. While one part goes to doctors, the other one goes to the hospital. In this case, we found that doctors had kept the entire amount with themselves. We have already suspended Rana and eight other doctors involved in it," minister Patel said.
An inquiry is still on and further action will be taken as per the findings of the investigation, he said. Citing various documents in her possession, Kesari claimed that clinical research conducted by Rana and others led to the death of at least three patients. "I have various documents to prove the irregularities. Four companies had signed MoUs with the management of the V S Hospital to carry out clinical trials on patients. As per my knowledge, this illegal clinical research led to the death of at least three patients," she said. "As per the law, fees paid by these companies should have been divided between the doctors and VS Hospital. But in this case, not a single rupee was deposited into the hospital's bank account despite 500 patients undergoing trials," the corporator added.
Since Kesari also put VS Hospital's current superintendent Dr Parul Shah in the dock, the latter claimed that Rana was given the responsibility of carrying out clinical trials by the then superintendent Dr Manish Patel. "Clinical trials at the V S Hospital started in 2021 when Dr Manish Patel was the hospital superintendent. Dr Patel had appointed Dr Devang Rana here as an expert pharmacologist and began the trials on patients. I was not involved in this exercise as I joined just six month ago," she told reporters on Monday. She claimed that clinical trials at the VS Hospital had been permanently stopped in December last year after the hospital management learnt about the irregularities. Instead of forming an official 'Ethics Committee' as mandated under the law, Rana and Patel had created their own committee of doctors and started conducting clinical trials, she said.
"An internal inquiry has revealed that since 2021, Rana and his team of doctors conducted clinical trials on nearly 500 patients of the VS Hospital for 4 pharmaceutical research companies," she said, adding that around 50 types of such trials were conducted. Shah claimed that no one has approached her with a complaint of death due to a clinical trial at the hospital. She did not rule the angle of financial irregularities under Rana because despite conducting trials and collecting fees from companies as per agreements, money was not deposited into the hospital's official bank account.