The Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) has offered a helping hand to the Drugs Control Department of Andhra Pradesh in assessing the quality of drugs and cosmetics. The institute has established "Health of Pharmaceuticals-Evaluation (HOPE)" a new centre meant to assess the quality of drugs and cosmetics for the department. The DCA has duly recognized the facility, it is learnt.

Samples sent by the APDCA will now be subjected to rigorous analysis as per the provisions of Drugs & Cosmetics Act 1940 and Rules 1945 in the new facility. The institute has also expressed its willingness to offer the services of its other testing facilities also to the department. The facilities are to be useful in detecting spurious drugs in a most scientific manner.

The IICT is equipped with excellent testing facilities with ISO and other international accreditations. The institute offers knowledge-based services to the industrial and other users from India and abroad in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Mass Spectrometry, X-Ray Diffraction, Thermal Analysis, Surface Characterization, Chromatography and a variety of spectroscopic techniques. Many of these facilities are useful for functional and chemical evaluation of drugs and cosmetics. The institute has offered all these facilities along with the highly specialized services to APDCA.

The facilities available at "HOPE" and other centres in the institute provides for a range of tests in accordance with IP, BP, USP and various regulatory standards. Sophisticated instruments such as Dissolution Test Station, Auto Titrators, FTIR, 500 MHz NMR, LC MS, HPLC, GC MS, Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS), ICP Mass and Scanning Electron Microscopy etc. will be employed in these centres.

According to sources Indian pharmaceutical industry has already shown tremendous interest in utilizing the services offered by HOPE.