'CDA not addressing chronic problems'

AIDCOC, at a two-day meet on "Better healthcare through innovations in pharmaceuticals", said that if the Centre was interested in eradicating spurious drug menace and proper operationalisation of the CDA, it was important to strengthen the state-level FDAs.

A Central Drug Authority for India has been planned on the lines of the US Federal Drug Agency and a Bill on the same has been introduced in Parliament recently.

General Secretary of AIDCOC, Ravi Uday Bhaskar said: "We are not completely opposing the CDA but our concern is that it is not addressing any of the existing chronic problems like eradication of spurious drugs, sub-standard drugs."

"We believe the eradication of these problems would be possible only if infrastructure at state levels are improved drastically, including empowering the officers with updated knowledge and information and regulatory mechanisms.

"The Centre is talking only about centralised drug licensing and uniform drug regulatory system in the country," he said.

The CDA was to give an opportunity for level playing field for the pharmaceutical firms operating in the country as currently various state drug controllers are adopting disparate regulatory standards, precipitating a variety of issues such as misbranding, circumvention of regulatory procedures for launch of new drugs.