Kerala, the land of Ayurveda which houses over 700 Ayurvedic drug manufacturing units, will soon have a sophisticated Ayurvedic Drug Standardization Laboratory at the Government Ayurveda College, Thiruvananthapuram, thanks to the initiative of the Department of Ayush.

The project is under the scheme 'strengthening of state drug testing laboratories and pharmacies' of Department of Ayush to set up quality infrastructure for ISM drug standardization, with funding to the tune of Rs 75 lakhs each to existing government labs in the ISM sector in 11 states at Bangalore, Chennai, Baroda, Thiruvananthapuram, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Utthar Pradesh etc.

Talking to Pharmabiz, Dr. Thankamma, head of the Drug Standardization Centre in Thiruvananthapuram said the unit would eventually be developed as the Regional Pharmacopoeia Research Laboratory of the National Pharmacopoeia Laboratory of Indian Medicine at Ghaziabad to help the procedures and monographs developed by the centre to maximize the benefits to the industry.

The centre, which will have sophisticated equipments like HPTLC, HPLC and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometre (AAS), will develop various protocols and monographs for standardization of Ayurvedic drugs. Tenders will be floated soon to purchase equipments worth Rs 55 lakhs and Rs 20 lakhs have been earmarked for civil infrastructure. The existing unit, functioning near Poojappura since 1977, has been relocated to the Government Ayurveda College premises, and the building was inaugurated yesterday.

She said the unit, so far ill-equipped in infrastructure, has multidisciplinary strengths in drug standardization, thanks to the availability of 15 odd staff including scientists in the field of Ayurveda, botany, chemistry, microbiology, pharmacy etc. The centre has published over 35 scientific research papers related to Ayurvedic drug standardization.

A few years ago, the centre developed a revolutionary and unique monograph for standardization of one of the most popular Ayurveda drug Gulguluthikthakam with protocols to detect 29 of the 32 ingredients included in this drug. The Central Council for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha (CCRAS) has published the details of this monograph in a book format for the benefit of the Ayurvedic industry, said Dr. Thankamma.