The visit aimed to understand the efforts USP is making in India to create standards for medicines, ensure full safety and quality of medicines and bring to India international standards in drug manufacture
Sudhansh Pant, Joint Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), visited the US Pharmacopeia’s (USP) India facility in Hyderabad. He toured the facility and met with senior level scientists. Reportedly, the purpose of this visit was to better understand the efforts USP is making in India to create standards for medicines, ensure full safety and quality of medicines and bring to India international standards in drug manufacture.
USP develops the reference standards to ensure the quality of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and is supportive of government initiatives to strengthen and revive the domestic manufacturing of intermediaries and APIs.
The Joint Secretary’s discussion with USP India touched upon various aspects of ensuring the quality of medicines in India and how USP standards could help Indian manufacturers to import their products both to the US and to other countries. Pant also enquired about the verification programme and process and showed interest in the education and training programmes conducted by USP.
Dr KV Surendranath, Senior Vice President- International Sites Operations said, “We welcome this opportunity to showcase our technical expertise to the Department of Pharmaceuticals. We see ourselves as partners in India’s efforts to produce safe and high quality medicines that meet all global standards. We hope to continue with future engagements with the DoP on various aspects related to quality of medicines and to address issues of critical importance to patient safety.”
Pant commented that he was very impressed and that the visit was quite enlightening and informative. He noted the commendable work being done at the facility in the field of standards, testing and research and the various collaborations in the interest of the Indian pharma industry. Pant hopes that other governments and private institutions will benefit from the presence of USP’s world class facility in Hyderabad.