Experts Express Concern Over Failure Of Drug Authorities To Carry Out Regular Checking Of Drug Samples

Hyderabad, 10 April 2019: With more and more spurious and not of standard quality drugs flooding the pharmaceutical markets in the country, doctors and healthcare experts have expressed concern that the Drug Control Administration (DCA) officials have failed to carry out regular check of samples of medicines and accordingly label them so as to help the customers get best quality medicines.

“As already, India has been renowned for its capability of manufacturing high quality generic medicines across the globe. Though it is regarded as a positive sign for the Indian consumers, but with no proper supervision and regular check of these medicines produced and supplied in India by local manufacturers, the chances of flooding of spurious and not of standard quality drugs in the market are very high,” opined Dr. Ashutosh Kumar, a professor from a leading pharmaceutical educational institute.

Even some of the doctors are also of the opinion that the central drugs laboratory and regional drugs testing laboratories are not carrying out checks to see if drugs are standard quality and labelling them accordingly. “I feel there should be proper guidelines for standard of quality for drugs to be formulated. This will allow categorisation of drugs. Due to constant complains of low quality of drugs, and the slow pace of growth of generic medicines in India, a pressure group is demanding that here must be data on standard quality drugs,” observed Dr. Naveen Kumar, a senior pharmacologist.

Experts also observed that generic drugs exported to European countries and the US have proper labelling and are constantly checked by the food and drug administration, therefore they also demanded that a similar set up should also be established in India to constantly monitor the quality of medicines distributed in the Indian markets.

Even though the Drug Controller General of India has made several representations for guidelines and data of standard quality drugs manufactured in India, no such data has been publicised by the government in this regard so far.

“Presently more than 80 per cent of anti- retroviral drugs used worldwide to combat AIDS are from Indian pharmaceutical industry. The quality and efficacy of drugs manufactured by domestic players has helped to carve a niche in the global generic drug markets. The problem being seen in India is from manufacturers who are not in the branded generic category. These players need to be regulated and until that does not happen, the issue of efficacy will be raised from time to time,” observed a senior drug control official from TS DCA.Pharmabiz