To help the ayurveda drug manufacturers to implement GMP, the Ayurveda Drug Manufacturers Association (ADMA) is to conduct a course on GMP guidelines and its compliance. The week-long course will be conducted in association with Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia Committee (APC) in May.

ADMA general secretary Ranjit Puranik told Pharmabiz that, the course is the result of talks between ADMA and the APC over the issue of proper sensitisation and training to implement GMP effectively. As part of this, the Pharmacopoeia Laboratory of Indian Medicine (PLIM) has designed a training module, which is retracted to 15 participants over a weeklong period. This will be the first batch of the programme.

The programme will reap rich benefits for quality control department personnel, function heads and workers to a large extent as this programme has been aimed to upgrade their existing knowledge and efforts.

"The module is open to quality control people in the industry for more exposure on GMP. This will enhance the implementation to a great extent," said Puranik. He also added, that this will first be tried out in Maharashtra and then it will be taken into other centres region wise.

The GMP status as of now is said to be almost complete in the thousands of ayurvedic units spread across the state. Puranik opined that most units have complied so far and the real issue has been the need for a system and guideline, which is now being provided by the programme.

When asked about the rising costs of renovation that has been raised as an issue by the industry, he replied that compliance to schedule T is fundamental and this will pilot a rise in expenditure but the consistent quality and ability to deliver the medicines will far outweigh the result. However he conceded that there might be a marginal increase in price that will not be a setback since better manufacturing and production service is always appreciated and accepted by consumers.

As Pharmabiz reported earlier, the Department of Ayush along with ADMA had planned a quality control exercise with the cluster development programmes for ISM industries as part of the eleventh five-year plan. The scheme, in collaboration with a professional consultancy organization like the Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS), is to cater to technology and upgradation requirement of these units for development of common facilities relating to raw material standardization and quality control of furnished products.