The Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission will publish IP Addendum 2008 by December and is planning a series of training programmes for the stakeholders to impart lessons on adhering to the standard setting document and procedures.

The Addendum, which is getting ready for publication, will have more new monographs besides incorporating the suggestions received from the stakeholders and removing a few errors in the Indian Pharmacopoeia 2007, sources said. The new monographs will include those from veterinary, herbal and vaccine areas. The fifth edition of Pharmacopoeia in three volumes including over 1600 monographs has been published in December last and is going to be made effective from July 1. The IP 2007 has been received well by the stakeholders so far, sources said.

The Commission, which has been made an autonomous agency recently giving a major impetus to the standardisation efforts in the drug sector, has also identified experts and institutions to hold a series of training sessions for the industry and others in different parts of the country. The IPC will be collaborating with Pharmexcil and US Pharmacopoeia Convention in this regard.

The IPC is also going to participate in a big way in the forthcoming Indian Pharmaceutical Congress, scheduled in December this year. It will hold a separate symposium on the pharmacopoeia, standard setting programmes and related topics. Representatives from the counterpart agencies from different countries including United States, UK and China will take part in the event which will go a long way to harmonise and improve the standards of drugs.

Meanwhile, IPC member-secretary Dr G N Singh said that he was happy to see the autonomous status finally coming to the commission and it had given a much-needed boost to functioning of the agency. The Central Indian Pharmacopoeia Laboratory has also been placed exclusively for conducting tests required for the IP. In the gazette notification, dated May 30 (no 21), the Centre had conferred autonomy to the commission after a cabinet decision was taken earlier in March.