Health min urges stakeholders to build trust in quality of Indian drugs

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya urged all the stakeholders on Sunday to steadfastly work towards building trust and confidence in the quality of Indian drugs, cosmetics and medical devices in domestic and export markets.

It is of critical importance to ensure that the country's regulatory mechanisms are of impeccable standards that are sustained over time and space, Mandaviya said as he inaugurated a two-day "chintan shivir" on "Drugs: Quality Regulations and Enforcement" in Hyderabad.

"How can we ensure that the confidence of the consumers of pharmaceuticals manufactured in India is upheld? I urge all the stakeholders to steadfastly work towards making the Indian drugs regulatory system among the best in the world, which could be emulated by other countries," he said.

In his inaugural address, Mandaviya underlined the focus of the deliberative forum, saying, "The chintan shivir is a platform for all the stakeholders in the pharma and health sectors to deliberate on pathways for cohesive and synergistic approaches for building robust and resilient regulatory systems."

Various agencies across the Centre and states form important components to ensure that the pharmaceuticals manufactured in the country and consumed by domestic and international consumers are of the highest quality and adhere to the standard global manufacturing protocols, the minister said.

This will ensure that India's fame as the "pharmacy of the world" is upheld and the country provides pharma products of the highest quality to the consumers, he added.

The health minister highlighted that "it is of critical importance to ensure that the regulatory mechanisms of the country are of impeccable standards, which are sustained over time and space. This is possible when the central ministries and state bodies work in a spirit of cooperative federalism, building on the strengths of one another and working jointly to remove loopholes in the regulatory systems".

He encouraged the participants to share their knowledge and insights from their field-level experience to enrich the discussions over the two days of collaborative brainstorming.

"The challenges we face can be collaboratively addressed by pooling our collective experience. The manthan at the end of these two days will provide rich knowledge to build strong, sturdy, resilient and people-friendly mechanisms," Mandaviya said.

The chintan shivir is being organised by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), in collaboration with the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP).

The event brought together all the stakeholders -- the MoHFW, the DoP, health secretaries and drug controllers from the states and Union territories, industry associations -- on a common platform.

The participants at the conclave will brainstorm on various facets of producing a sturdy and resilient regulatory system for drugs, cosmetics and medical devices.

These include sessions on building trust and confidence in the quality of drugs in the domestic and global market, review predictability, transparency and accountability in the regulation of the quality of drugs, effective enforcement of quality, safety and efficacy at the field level, ensuring compliance to Indian pharmacopeia standards.

There will be sessions on developing a robust network for pharmacovigilance and materiovigilance programmes, creating a unified IT platform for all regulatory activities, to assess the regulatory capacity across the states and the Centre, along with promoting "ease of doing business" and capacity building at the level of the states and national regulators for the regulation of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.