'Govt must scale up production of active ingredients of drugs'

The Centre should scale up the production of active ingredients used in drugs to meet the country's need, a government institute has said after it found that over 95 per cent of the samples examined during a survey were sourced from China.
The Noida-based National Institute of Biologicals (NIB), outlining the findings of the country's largest ever drug quality survey, has said that over 90 per cent of nearly 5,000 samples picked up from airports and seaports were from China.
The NIB, an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has also asked the government to consider setting up a training academy in drug regulatory sciences to create skilled manpower which will help realise the objective of India becoming the 'pharmacy of the world'.

The drug survey had found that over 10 per cent of drugs in the government supply chain were 'Not of Standard Quality'.
"In the drug survey over a period of three months, 4,987 samples were drawn at the airports and seaports. It was observed that 98.51 per cent of these samples were that of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) of which 91.87 per cent were from China.
"One company from China alone accounted for 26.82 per cent of APIs imported into our country," it said.
In light of these facts, it is imperative that the government may take measures to scale up existing indigenous production capacity of APIs and set up new manufacturing units to enhance production to meet the country's need, the body said in its recommendation.

It also asked the government to create a national digital database of all distributors, retailers, pharmacies, government sources, name and contact information of licenced pharmacists which should be regularly updated.