Stung by the European Union's (EU) recent report which singled out India as the major source of counterfeit medicines exported to EU countries, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) is seriously considering a project to bring the sample products from various countries to the manufacturing companies here to recheck the genuineness of their own exported drugs.

The project will retrace the medicines from the overseas markets exported by the Indian companies. It has been envisaged to fix the 'shame' caused by EU report. The project will be conducted with the support of Pharmaceutical Exports Promotion Council (Pharmexcil), various Indian Embassies, government departments and the industry.

A huge funding along with human effort is the basic need of the project, as the products should be collected from each country to be handed over to the respective manufacturers in a regular basis.

"The project is on thought process at present. The major concern is that the project needs immense support on funding and obviously the government will extend support on this. The manufacturer has to know what happens to his product when it reaches the marked countries," Dr M Venkateswaralu, DCGI told Pharmabiz.

The counterfeiting of drugs is occurred more in the case of third party exports through merchant exporters, according to Pharmexcil sources. The manufacturing companies, which are naturally concerned about the quality and genuineness of their product for various reasons, are not able to track their products once it has been handed over to the merchant exporter. The Pharmexcil will collect the samples from the overseas markets through Indian Embassies and will send the products to the manufacturers in India for testing quality of the product.

"In a recent programme conducted by Pharmexcil at Hyderabad, the DCGI has proposed the project, suggesting the council to take the lead. It is a long-term project, which needs a huge funding and co-ordination within the government departments and with the industry. The project is in the preliminary thinking stage at present," said Dr P V Appaji, executive director, Pharmexcil.