The Scientific Committee of Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), the main organ of IPC that is responsible for all technical decisions, has finalised the formation of 20 expert sub-committees to provide key inputs on specific areas of concern. The inputs would be utilised for the preparation of the forthcoming edition of Indian Pharmacopoeia.

The committees are to focus on areas like clinical medicine and pharmacology, drug nomenclature, general policies and planning, general chapters and format, medicinal chemicals, parenteral products, devices and diagnostics, blood and blood products, biotechnology and recombinant DNA products, vaccines and other biologicals, herbal products and crude drugs, publication and information technology, bio assay, biostatics and toxicology, reference substances etc.

In addition to this, special focus has been given to set standards of medicines for diseases of national importance. Thus there are special committees to focus on anti-retroviral drugs, anti-TB drugs and anti-asthma drugs. The medicinal chemicals segment has also been grouped as general analytical methods and pharmaceutical dosage forms for better results.

According to sources, the committees are to have an average four members each, drawn from sections of pharmaceutical sciences like industry, academia and regulatory departments. Dr P R Pabrai, vice chairman Scientific Committee IPC is to be in charge of these committees.

While members to some of the committees that need urgent attention have already been decided, for others, IPC would take more time to fill up the vacancies.

The Scientific Committee, is headed by veteran scientist Dr Nitya Anand, ex-director, Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow. The members of the committee are Professor Saranjit Singh, NIPER, Mohali; Professor V. K. Kapoor, Punjab University, Chandigarh; Dr. V. K. Lal, deputy director, Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic & Siddha, New Delhi; Dr. D. B. Anantha Narayana, head, Herbals Research, Hindustan Lever Research Ltd., Mumbai; Dr. Anup Mishra, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; Professor P. Rama Rao, director, NIPER; Dr. Anil Paul Kariath, managing director, Sartorius India Ltd., Bangalore; Prafull D. Sheth, formerly executive director, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd.; Dr. P. G. Shrotriya, chief executive, Elite Pharma Consultants, Navi Mumbai; Dr. K. M. Thomas, vice president, APL Research Centre, Hyderabad; Dr. Vinay G Nayak, executive vice president, quality operations and regulatory compliances, Lupin Ltd., Mumbai; Vinod Arora, director, pharma research, Ranbaxy Research Laboratories; Dr. V. A. Srinivasan, executive director, Indian Immunologicals Ltd., Hyderabad; Dr. S. N. Pal, director, technical operations, Hindustan Latex Ltd., Thiruvananthapuram; Partha Jyoti Gogoi, director (I/C), Regional Drugs Testing Laboratory (RDTL), Gauhati; J. L. Sipahimalani, CMA Laboratories, Mumbai; Dr. Prem K. Gupta, ex-drugs controller (I), New Delhi; R. S. Iyer, former vice president, quality assurance, Glaxo Laboratories Ltd., Bangalore; Dr. Hemnalini Kumar, director, bio-products, Salesworth India Ltd., Bangalore and Dr. T. G. Chandrashekhar, director and head, analytical research, Ranbaxy Research Laboratories. Dr G N Singh, director, Central Indian Pharmacopoeia Laboratory, Ghaziabad is the ex-officio member and Member-Secretary of IPC.