The Twelfth Pharmaceutical Analysts' Convention organised by the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA) and the Association of Pharmaceutical Analysts (APA) recently in Mumbai proved to be an excellent opportunity for the analysts working in the pharmaceutical industry, R&D institutions, government laboratory and approved testing laboratories to enhance knowledge about the latest happenings in the analytical world.

The main theme of the event was 'The analyst: an agent to enhance excellence'. Some of the internationally acclaimed speakers included Bruce Ross, country director, US FDA , Department of Health & Human Services, New Delhi. While the welcome address was given by N R Munjal, president IDMA, the key note speaker was introduced by Daara B Patel, secretary general, IDMA and the opening remarks were given by J L Sipahimalani, chairman, quality management and regulatory & technical subcommittees, IDMA.

Some of the topics covered were :Status of the next edition of Indian Pharmacopoeia, The role of analyst in compiling an excellent CTD, Vendor approval for starting material, risk management, Effective OOS investigation, tracking & trending impurities, Valid microbial contamination and microbial assays, Setting specifications for modified release dosage forms, quality audit trail-ready at any time, patenting analytical techniques, impurity reference substances - procurement, maintenance & use and productivity in impurity profiling and routine analysis.

Some of the eminent speakers included Dr Vijay Kshirsagar, executive vice president, corporate quality assurance & regulatory affairs, Unichem Lab Ltd, R Raghunandanan, pharma consultant, S M Mudda, executive director-technical & operations, Micro Labs Ltd, Vivek Dhyani, application specialist, Agilent Technology, Dr Gopakumar Nair, CEO, Gopakumar Nair Associates and Dr Premnath Shenoy, AstraZeneca, Bangalore.