Karnataka Drugs Control Department will be setting up a Consultative Committee for its Drugs Testing Laboratory with an aim to enhance its efficiency standards. The Committee, which will meet once a month, would supervise the testing procedures of the drugs that come to its lab for assessing its stability and purity standards. The Committee will also advise the laboratory on how to improve the drugs testing standards.

Although the members to be inducted into the panel are yet to be decided, "we are looking at experts in the calibre of R S Iyer, former head of quality control for companies like the erstwhile Parke Davis, Glaxo Pharmaceuticals", Dr. Suresh Kunhi Muhammed, drugs controller, government of Karnataka, told pharmabiz.com

Efforts are being made to improve the efficiency and standards of the report that are generated from the drugs testing laboratory. There are several issues prevailing in the area of drugs testing like calibration of equipment, use of chemicals in drugs tests and skills of the staff. The staff at the drug-testing lab need guidance from specialists in the field, he noted.

Meanwhile the drugs control department is facing a massive staff shortage. Currently, there are around 120 vacancies. The last recruitment for First Divisional Assistants (FDAs) was in 1999 and only three were hired.

"We are grossly short staffed especially in the clerical category but not drug inspectors and assistant drugs controllers in the department. The lack of personnel in the department has resulted in considerable delays for the secretarial work of the drug inspectors and assistant drugs controllers", said Dr. Muhammed.

The government of Karnataka has halted recruitment due to a financial crunch and is on a major cost cutting drive. While the FDAs are selected through direct recruitment, the Second Divisional Assistants (SDAs) are hired either by direct recruitment or recruited on compassionate grounds.

According to the Task Force on Government Recruitment set up by the government of India, in the drugs control department, it is mandatory to have one inspector to oversee 25 manufacturing units and one inspector for 100 drugs sales establishments. In Karnataka drugs control department there are only 3 inspectors overseeing 240 manufacturing units.

Delving in to recent raids by the drug inspectors, Dr. Muhammed said that companies were adopting new technologies to prevent the production of counterfeit drugs. Such packaging technologies are expensive but still multi national companies are eager to adopt novel packaging methods like use of holograms and bar codes. The latest technology used by pharmaceutical manufacturers in the West is to imprint special symbols unique to each company on the drug which can only be detected with ultraviolet rays, will go a long to protect the drug up to its expiry dates.