Is Neurobion banned in India?

Neurobion, and its higher-strength version Neurobion Forte, is a vitamin B complex tablet from Procter & Gamble Health, formerly Merck, with an injectable form used for neuropathy and B12 deficiency. It is not banned in India.

No Section 26A notification names Neurobion or vitamin B complex. The FDC bans of recent years have concerned combinations of active drugs; vitamin combinations have not been targeted, and Neurobion has not appeared in the CDSCO's monthly alerts in the period we have reviewed.

The rumour comes from the alerts nonetheless. Vitamin B complex is among the products most often found not of standard quality: the alert for August 2024 listed vitamin B complex, vitamin C and vitamin D3 batches among 48 NSQ samples, and later alerts have repeated the pattern. The manufacturers are typically small companies supplying government hospitals through tenders, and the usual failure is that a tablet contains less of a vitamin than its label states. News reports summarise this as "vitamin B tablets fail quality test" without naming the maker, and readers assume the reference is to the brand they take.

A batch-level finding applies to the manufacturer and batch listed in the alert. Neurobion can be taken as labelled. Whether a daily B complex is needed at all is a fair question for a doctor, and true B12 deficiency needs testing and, often, injections rather than tablets.