Hexi Pharma disinfectants were diluted, Czech expertize confirms

The expertize on Hexi Pharma disinfectants required to a laboratory in the Czech Republic confirm the Romanian prosecutors’ suspicions: the solutions have been diluted.

The prosecutor recieved the results of the expertize on the products from the lab in the Czech Republic.

The disinfectant’s dilution has been initially tested in the labs accredited in Romania, but the tests conducted at Cantacuzino Institute in August this year could not precisely establish if the efficiency of the substances had been affected by the dilution.

Now the prosecutors are to settle the clear prejudice in this high-sounding case and after that they will send the file in court.

The investigation in this case started in spring after the media reported that the biocides sold by Hexi Pharma to hospitals countrywide would have been diluted.

The first official results regarding the tests on the disinfectants supplied by Hexi Pharma across Romanian hospitals showed in May that the substances have been indeed diluted up to ten times.

The samples tested at ICECHIM (The National Institute for Research&Development in Chemistry and Petrochemistry) on the Hexi Pharma products show big concentration differences between the declared value and the one tested in the lab.

Thus, the declared value of the ammonium chloride was 15% and the measured one was 5.18%. An iodine product had a declared value of 10% and the real one was 7.41%, said Victor Strâmbu, secretary of state within the Health Ministry. The glutaraldehyde substance was 12% on the label, but the real value was only 1,23%.

Serious accusations are brought against the owners of Hexi Pharma, the company which allegedly has got rich in recent years from contracts with the Romanian state. According to ‘Gazeta Sporturilor’ journalists, the company bought active substances for disinfectants through offshore companies in Cyprus, then the prices were hiked by 7 times.

The recipe, finally contracted with the hospitals in Romania, was based on a disinfectant diluted 10 times and by 7 times more expensive. More specifically, the off-shore controlled by the owner of Hexi Pharma bought the active substance for disinfectants for EUR 11/kg and resold it through Hexi Pharma for EUR 73/kg.

The difference remained in the accounts in Cyprus.

The Hexi Pharma owner, Dan Condrea, died in a car crash soon after the case was released in the media and the prosecutors started investigations. Investigators’ version so far is that he committed suicide.

Hexi Pharma manager Flori Dinu was taken into custody in this case, but she was placed under house arrest later on.