Four former employees of a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company have been arrested for allegedly stealing data from the firm and using it to manufacture drugs illegally at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

The arrests were made by the Cyberabad police, who were acting a complaint by a senior executive of the company, which produces bulk drugs and pharma products in Hyderabad and in other cities. 

The executive had filed a complaint with the police, stating that their technology was their intellectual property, but was stolen and used by another firm to manufacture some products.

The accused were identified as G Srikanth Reddy, M Krishna Reddy, M Venkat Reddy and S Yogeeswara Rao.

Investigations revealed that the prime accused, who was a Business Development Manager in the company, was fired on charges of malpractice.

"While working at the company, Srikanth Reddy resorted to malpractices resulting in loss and damage to the company. He was removed from the company in the year 2017," the police said in a press note.

Police added that he bore a grudge against the firm, its sister companies and their management.

Investigation officials said that Srikanth then allegedly hatched a plan and lured the other three workers with very lucrative job offers in his unit, following which they shared confidential data with the prime accused who started manufacturing the products at Visakhapatnam.

The accused, who collected data pertaining to Batch Production Control Records, Specification, Certificate of Analysis, Standard Testing Procedure, Raw Data of the drugs were arrested from different places, police said. They even sold the products to customers including supplying a huge batch to Mumbai. 

"The accused were arrested for committing data theft and thereby indulging in fraud for wrongful gain with common intention, and thereby causing huge financial loss to the complainant company," the police said.