A high-level committee under the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister will soon recommend a set of technological and scientific measures to reduce the incidence of spurious and sub-standard drugs, even as the parallel effort by the Health Ministry is going on to check the menace by implementing a new law.

The third meeting of the 'working group on the scientific and technological measures to counter spurious and substandard drugs and diagnostic centres' will be held on March 9 to take a final call on the likely recommendations. Besides discussing the minutes of the past meetings, the forthcoming meeting will draw up a plan of action to be recommended, it is learnt.

Significantly, the meeting has also invited the industry associations to take note of their views on the issue. OPPI, IDMA, IPA, SPIC and CIPI will be given time to present their suggestions on the possible scientific measures to counter the spurious drugs problem. Dr Praful R Naik, member of the panel, would be presenting the practices followed globally in this regard, sources said.

The panel has been set up by the scientific advisor's office to recommend in the next nine months time the scientific and technological measures to curb the menace of spurious drugs and address non-conformity of quality standards among the diagnostic centres.

The committee started functioning with the first meeting, taking place at the end of December 2008. The PSA working group, chaired by PN Tandon, professor emeritus, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, has representation from the medical fraternity, Drug Controller General of India, industry and consumer rights organisation apart from representative of PSA's office.

The purview of the new committee includes studying the prevailing and planned international practices adopted world wide to tackle the evil of spurious drugs, particularly in case of regulated markets like the United States of America and other countries in Europe. The expert group will also analyse the status of the problem in the country and then suggest specific scientific measures that can be taken up to address the social evil.

While the recent steps by the Health Ministry including the amendment of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act to enhance penalties against clandestine manufacturers of spurious drugs aimed at strengthening the regulatory framework, the mandate of the working group is to concentrate strictly on scientific measures and R&D steps.