In less than a week, India has found mention twice in concerns and action taken by the United States involving opioid Fentanyl.
“China remains the primary source country for illicit fentanyl precursor chemicals and pill pressing equipment, followed by India,” said an “Annual threat assessment” report of the US Intelligence community, published earlier this week.
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Fentanyl abuse is a critical part of US administration’s tariff narrative against Mexico, Canada and China. And now India finds a mention in the Intel report, and this is not an isolated instance.
Just days ago, a US Department of Justice communication said, “an India-based chemical manufacturing company and three high-level employees were charged in federal court in Washington, D.C., today related to illegally importing precursor chemicals used to make illicit fentanyl.” The note subsequently mentions Hyderabad-based Vasudha Pharma Chem Limited. The note also said, the defendants allegedly conspired to send “four metric tons of a precursor chemical to the United States and Mexico for the manufacture of Fentanyl.”
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A query was emailed to Vasudha Pharma and a response is awaited.
The latest 2025 Annual Threat Assessment report is the Intelligence community’s official, coordinated evaluation of an array of threats to US citizens, and its interests broad, the report said. “Nonstate groups are often enabled, both directly and indirectly, by state actors, such as China and India as sources of precursors and equipment for drug traffickers,” the Intel report said.
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Industry concern
Representatives with multiple pharma industry platforms told businessline, the mentioned company was not part of their Association, and they were not aware of the alleged incidents of abuse.
But pharmaceuticals is one of the segments identified by US President Trump for reciprocal tariff action, and recent fentanyl incidents and red-flags could put the industry under sharp focus, say industry-watchers.
Harish Jain, President, Federation Of Pharma Entrepreneurs, told the correspondent, “Fentanyl, Tramadol etc are extremely useful drugs in pain-management in cancer and orthopedic cases, for example. However, if there is an abuse being reported from any country, it is a compliance and law and order issue, and the whole life saving pharma industry cannot be tarred with a single brush for bad actors. Let the laws of that particular country take its own due course.”
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“Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids remain the most lethal drugs trafficked into the United States, causing more than 52,000 U.S. deaths in a 12-month period ending in October 2024. This represents a nearly 33 per cent decrease in synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths compared to the same reporting time frame the previous year, according to CDC provisional data, and may be because of the availability and accessibility of naloxone,” said the US Intel report.
