Rs 17-lakh cancer drug bought for Rs 20,000: How police traced a doctor

For over a year, Sharma had allegedly been buying and selling expensive cancer medicines via HK his online pharmacy to a patient from Afghanistan among others. He was arrested last week – after the police laid a trap and caught him in Delhi’s Sukhdev Vihar with medicines worth more than Rs 50 lakh.

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The orders

Police said Sharma’s alleged dealings began with his IndiaMART listing for HK Pharmaceutical.

Pharmacies and medicine suppliers use the IndiaMART platform to list their businesses and provide contact numbers, through which customers and wholesalers can place orders.

In January 2024, the blood cancer patient contacted Sharma via the listing.

The patient had been prescribed Iclusig – a drug that works by blocking proteins that promote tumour growth. It comes in multiple dosages – 10 mg to 45mg – and is usually taken once a day.

A police officer said the Max US Foundation had agreed to provide the drug.

But when there was no relief, the patient decided to sell it.

A police officer close to the inquiry said Sharma knew the drugs’ real value. For over a year his company had been sourcing and selling Darzalex 1.8 mg – banned in India – and Human Albumin Solution 20%.

Packs of Darzalex seized by police from accused. (Express Photo)

“Darzalex is not entirely banned… just its 1.8 mg version. It is used as an antibody to treat plasma cancer in patients and is priced at around Rs. 2.27 lakh. Human Albumin is used to expand blood volume in cancer patients and maintain blood flow through their heart,” the officer said.

Police said Sharma had already paid Rs 40,000 for batches of Darzalex and Albumin to sellers he contacted through IndiaMART and was planning to sell them.

A doctor who couldn’t be

Sharma was born and brought up in a well-to-do family in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior.

He was the first in his family to pursue a career in medicine but was unable to get admission to a decent medical college in India. Therefore, in 2010 he went to Russia to study medicine, the Express has learned.

He came back to India in 2014 and sat for the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination – the test medical graduates from abroad must pass to practice in India, the police said. But he failed, multiple times.

After this he began working at Park Hospital in Faridabad.

While working he met his wife, who is an Ayurvedic doctor, the police said.

In 2021, Sharma opened his own facility – KMC Hospital – in Faridabad’s Jawahar Colony. In 2023, he married his then girlfriend and opened another branch of the hospital in Sohna in Haryana.

The businesses, however, struggled to meet their operating costs. Police sources said their practice of hiring freelancers ran up costs. They shut down the hospitals and transitioned into smaller businesses.

That was when the couple set up HK Polyclinic in Faridabad and started HK Pharmaceutical.

The latter was registered on IndiaMART.

The arrest

To arrest Sharma, a team led by Inspector Pawan Kumar and Sub Inspector Anupama laid a trap.

They placed an order. They asked for the order to be delivered to Sukhdev Vihar in Southeast Delhi.

On Friday, a man turned up at the drop site in a Honda City carrying packs of Iclusig, Darzalex, and Albumin. “When he reached a Mother Dairy booth and got out of the car, he was apprehended… On verification, he was found to be Manish Sharma,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Harsh Indora said.

Four packets of Iclusig, four 100-ml vials of Human Albumin Solution IP 20%, and two boxes of Darzalex 1.800 mg were seized. When the drugs were inspected, it appeared the Albumin and Darzalex might have been produced in Turkey. That led police to suspect human carriers were used to bring the drugs into India, either via air or sea routes. The cops have reached out to the Customs Department.

The police also said they suspect the MRP (i.e, the maximum retail price) stickers on some of the seized drugs could be fake. An official said the results of a forensic examination – for authenticity – are awaited.

Sharma allegedly told police he had procured Albumin and Darzalex from pharmacists in Patel Nagar in Delhi and Gurgaon in Haryana. However, raids of these places yielded nothing, the police said.

It is possible, the cops said, those running the centers had been tipped off somehow. It is also possible, the police said, Sharma had lied. For now the cops’ focus is to confirm the source of these medicines.