Ranbaxy withdraws AIDS drugs from WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday said Ranbaxy had voluntarily withdrawn all of its antiretroviral AIDS drugs from the UN health agency’s approved list.

The Geneva-based agency had already announced that it was dropping three generic HIV/AIDS drugs produced by the firm, India’s largest pharmaceutical company by sales. ‘‘Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited has informed WHO that it was voluntarily withdrawing all its antiretrovirals,’’ WHO said in a statement.

Ranbaxy took the step after finding discrepancies in documents submitted to prove the generic products’ bioequivalence to brand-name drugs, WHO said. But it added that Ranbaxy had already presented it with a plan for submitting new studies of the drugs, with the first such study expected to be finished by next month.