In a significant regulatory action, the Thai Food and Drug Administration (Thai FDA) has ordered the suspension of a factory and a packaging facility operated by the Hong Thai Herbal Company for operating without the required licenses. The operation led to the seizure of an estimated 2.4 million jars of herbal inhalers, with an estimated value of 100 million baht, Thai PBS reported.

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Thai FDA Secretary-General Supatra Boonserm announced today that the crackdown targeted the main production factory situated on Phet Kasem Road in Samut Sakhon province, along with a secondary packaging facility located on Sirikasem Road in Bangkok’s Bang Khae district. According to Secretary-General Supatra, both establishments had been functioning illegally for approximately three years. She stated that the regulatory body had previously issued a formal warning to the company, instructing them to apply for the necessary permits, but this directive was ultimately ignored.

Contradicting the FDA’s account, Thiraphong Rabuetham, the founder and proprietor of Hong Thai Herbal Company, asserted that his company had never been contacted by officials concerning its herbal inhaler products. He conceded that while design plans for the factory had been submitted to the agency, the company had not yet formally applied for a manufacturing license.

Thailand’s FDA seized over 2 million herbal inhalers worth 120 million baht from four illegal factories producing contaminated, unapproved products. #FDA #inhalerhttps://t.co/yIvBkU2Plv

— Thenationthailand (@Thenationth) October 31, 2025

The coordinated raids, conducted by Thai FDA officials and police from the Consumer Protection Division (CPD), resulted in the confiscation of the vast inventory of inhalers. Among the seized items were 400,000 units of the ‘Formula 2’ inhaler variant, which were found to be substandard after laboratory tests detected the presence of microorganisms.

The Consumer Protection Division has confirmed that the company’s proprietor will be formally summoned to acknowledge the charges that are set to be filed against the operation. In a further step to safeguard public health, CPD officers and Thai FDA officials will now conduct random inspections at pharmacies across the country. This nationwide effort is to ensure that the substandard ‘Formula 2’ inhalers have been successfully recalled and are completely removed from the consumer market.

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In a statement addressing the allegations, a Hong Thai executive offered a different account of the factory’s operations, asserting that the raided facility served a purely logistical role. The executive clarified that the location was used exclusively for the final stages of preparation, specifically for affixing product stickers and packaging individual jars into sets of a dozen. This activity, the company claims, was conducted using the same product details as their officially licensed factory.

-Thailand News (TN)