The Noose of the Catheter: What this French MNC Doesn’t Want Patients and Governments to Know
This article brings to light grave concerns about the selling of expired products and other questionable practices orchestrated by the French management of a multinational medical-device company through its Indian operations. The insights presented here are drawn from records and internal communications available to the author.
Recently, Divyanshi Chauhan, erstwhile HR Head of Vygon India, reported as follows:
For more than 25 years, the Indian arm of a French medical device MNC was the top-performing subsidiary—driving unprecedented revenue and profit contribution from India, leading in regulatory compliance, and serving as a model for the parent company.
Suddenly, this success story unravelled. In 2023, coinciding with a leadership change in France and the surfacing of internal misconduct in Europe, the Indian leadership—who wouldn’t agree to look the other way—was subjected to a forensic audit with false disclosures and without protocols.
When external investigators found no wrongdoing, the matter should have ended. Instead, the mandate was stretched again and again—a relentless, almost desperate hunt for fault. Ultimately, even then, the irreproachable Indian leadership had to be cleared. The board offered the CEO formal thanks for a stellar tenure and requested him to continue.
Unwilling to compromise his integrity, the Indian CEO resigned rather than endorse questionable regulatory filings. He left without serving his notice. His principled exit ignited a spark: sixteen senior high-performers—respected for their ethics—resigned en masse, also without notice, and joined a homegrown Indian multinational whose values they trusted.
The spurned MNC responded with vindictive recklessness. False smear narratives about those who had left were spun and even promoted internally to justify the audit in the eyes of French shareholders. Dealers were strong-armed into avoiding competitors’ products despite the MNC's monopolistic status in critical care ranges—even at the cost of short supplies, which the company continues to face due to regulatory misconduct. Since then, both compliance and performance have been in free fall, with no bottom in sight.
The Audit Unravels the Past
Now that the blameless have left, the way this devious audit is ensnaring the perpetrators feels almost providential. One of the many files that came to light during the audit report of Vygon India Pvt Ltd was from 1996–97, when a French expat ran the company. Here is the excerpt of one of the board reports that surfaced:
“10) During the year stock amounting to Rs. 9,98,164 has expired. The management is still hoping to recover 35% and as such only 65% of stocks valuing Rs. 6,48,807/- have been written off. This being a technical matter, auditors have accepted the management position.”
This text under point 10 clearly shows that the company had sterile products expire under its roof. Instead of a customary write-off, the company told its auditor (Chartered Accountant) it expected to “recover” value from the stock. The effect: expired goods were pushed into the market under the watch and written approval of absolutely the highest levels in France (data on file).
Those who were forced to sell the products in India still recall the adverse events and trauma caused, and may even have access to patients still suffering.
The Chartered Accountant who insisted on putting these notings and specifying these as “management position” on record was relieved, and another one was “hand-picked,” who “handled” the issue. He is back in action after 25 years, sensing that with the French management returning to old ways that favour corruption and system-gaming, the opportunity has reopened since the strict Indian leadership left.
Revival of an Old Playbook
In 2024, the company—now operating without its earlier ethical voices—revived an old playbook: pushing products up to their expiry dates despite knowing they would reach dealers too late. When one of the remaining employees raised these concerns with regulators (who, shockingly, relayed the complaint back to the company), management scrambled to cover up.
It introduced contracts that shifted liability onto distributors, making them responsible for ensuring expired products were not sold, even though the company itself continued billing until the last day of shelf life! The contracts also forbade fraudulent re-stickering—something the company had tacitly promoted through such sales—and required distributors to pledge not to pursue anti-trust actions, all while simultaneously prohibiting them from selling competing products!
The expired-goods case is only one of several breaches—unpardonable, yet still smaller than what may yet emerge. But it captures the deeper rot.
The Ranbaxy Parallel
Ranbaxy’s downfall, chronicled in Bottle of Lies, exposed how fabricated data and retaliation against whistleblowers were orchestrated. The French MNC’s misconduct echoes that script even more egregiously:
- Camouflage: Ranbaxy fabricated data. The French MNC relabelled expired stock as “recoverable,” (with endorsement from the highest levels in France), not only making fraudulent misdeclarations but also passing off spurious, cheap, locally made catheters as its own to unsuspecting patients in government hospitals. (Ref: the Kolkata Catheter Scam of 2024, where this French MNC remains blacklisted.)
- Theatre: Audits and filings staged as cover-ups, or weaponized to dig up dirt on those who would expose systemic misconduct.
- Vilification: Whistleblowers like Dinesh Thakur and the team exiting the French MNC disrupted carefully laid calculations. Those exonerated by audits were still vilified, to discredit their testimonies which were likely to emerge—regardless of professional or financial damage caused.
Suppression: Dissent punished, truth-tellers silenced. The French MNC even threatened judicial manipulation.
Like Ranbaxy, the French MNC faces little real accountability in India, exploiting weak and “manageable” enforcement. Ranbaxy evaded consequences at home but paid $500 million in penalties after U.S. courts intervened. The French MNC appears to be exploiting the same enforcement vacuum in India and other “manageable” countries today.
Why It Matters
Unless regulators act, India risks another Ranbaxy moment—this time in medical devices. History is repeating itself, and tragically, it is the global patient and the country’s image which suffers.
The French MNC’s case goes beyond fabricated data and audits twisted from instruments of truth into shields protecting vested interests and discrediting those who cannot be bought. It includes expired goods being sold, fraudulent misdeclarations across countries, spurious products passed off as its own, threats of justice being denied through judicial corruption, employees gagged, anti-trust diktats imposed on dealers, and more likely to surface.
The company is denying patients their health, employees their right to ethical work and legal remedy, and competitors and dealers the right to fair competition.
Unless regulators act decisively, India risks another embarrassing Ranbaxy-like moment—this time in medical devices. This is not a Bottle of Lies, but The Noose of the Catheter tightening around patients, employees, and vendors across nations—and shaming our regulators.
