The Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) is mulling over an idea to utilise its e-governance system to strengthen the drug withdrawal system in the state by alerting the retail pharmacists and the district level regulatory officials on any batch of medicines found not of standard quality in the drug testing lab.

The FDCA, which is in the final stage of completing the e-governance project to issue sales and product licenses for drugs through online and monitoring, has moved a plea to the state health ministry to allot fund to add a software to the existing system for the purpose.

Through the software, all the licensed retail pharmacists would automatically alerted through short message services (SMSs) right at the time when a not-of-quality standard or spurious drug test result is fed into the computer in the state drug testing lab, said H G Koshia, commissioner, Gujarat FDCA.

“We already have the details of every licensed pharma retail outlet in the state and just need a software to connect it with the drug testing lab at Baroda. This will ensure that even reports on a single batch will be known to the retailer through which they can take adequate step even before we alert them officially,” averred Koshia. However, he refused to reveal more on the project, since, the request for the same is pending with the ministry for approval.

Simultaneously, the FDCA has also requested the state government to allot an amount to set up one more drug testing laboratory in Gujarat. At present, the FDCA has a drug testing laboratory at Baroda, which is the oldest food and drug testing lab under the control of a state drug regulator in the country. The laboratory, in mid 2008, has received accreditation from the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) and has a capacity to conduct 9000 drug sample tests per year. In addition to that there are two dedicated facilities at Bhuj and Rajkot to conduct test on food samples.

The current capacity is enough to conduct tests on the drug samples collected at present from the state. The laboratory has conducted tests on about 2000 to 4000 drug samples per annum in last two years. “With the industry friendly policy and the right environment for growth, the pharma industry in the state is growing at a fast pace. We are looking at the situation five years ahead and a new drug testing laboratory with international standards would be a necessary by that time,” said Koshia. The request is under consideration of the state health ministry.

The state FDCA has also took adequate steps to bring in more manpower to the drug testing laboratory. Last week, an expert committee for appointment of staff in the drug regulatory office has sanctioned a proposal to fill 115 posts of government analysts with the food and drug testing laboratories. The new recruitment is expected to complete by the first months of next financial year.