The NIPER, Mohali will appoint a few more scientists and faculty on ad-hoc basis in the next three-six months to extend all required services to the small and medium sector pharma companies under the aegis of the Small and Medium Pharmaceutical Industry Centre (SMPIC) and make it fully useful for the struggling industry.

The NIPER is planning to help the industry with bioequivalence studies, green chemistry approaches for the APIs and problems of API processes, formulation development, analytical research, synthetic research, biotechnology, website and regulatory affair services as requested by the industry. However, sources said that the institute currently was constrained in this regard due to lack of critical manpower and hence it is trying to fill up the gap by appointing more scientists on ad-hoc basis.

This was disclosed at the recent meeting of the SMPIC consultative committee headed by Lalit Kumar Jain. Officiating director of NIPER Prof. K K Bhutani assured all efforts and cooperation by the faculty to provide full co-operation in running SMPIC in public private partnership mode.

The large pharma companies themselves have their own R&D units and would seek NIPER help only when it is economically profitable for them. SMPIC would now bridge the gap of aspirations of SME pharma sector by developing SMPIC as a hub for all solutions towards development of SME pharma sector, panel chairman Jain observed at the meeting. He added that the training programs conducted by NIPER need to be oriented to the requirements of regulatory authorities and to improve the induction of majority of B. Pharm. and B.Sc. students in the pharmaceutical industry. He said that the SME pharma sector was often accused of inferior quality of medicines and this stigma shall be removed with help of SMPIC.

The NIPER has capacity to train 20 persons per month as against 10000 analysts required by SME sector itself. The gap of demand and supply is so wide that no institutions can stand alone in fulfilling this objective. It was decided by the committee that whatever persons of B. Pharm or B. Sc would be trained in SMPIC would be selected on their ability to improve their skills, so that after completion of training the candidate could be graded for direct employment in the pharma industry. Dr D Roy, DDC of North Zone, suggested two types of training modules: Theory/discussion presentations and hands-on training on instruments and for theory presentations one may consider the topics/speakers listed during CBP training programmes that have been conducted at NIPER from 2004-2008. In this case SMPIC will maintain close liaison with pharmacy colleges and universities. The candidate selected would be given practical training of analytical method development and completing analysis of six different products before the graded certificate is awarded. The costing of such training and the syllabus, training DVD’s would be finalized by a sub-committee headed by Dr D Roy with Rajesh Madan, Dr Sanjay Jachak and Aparjita Takiar as convener. NIPER faculty would be invited at various cluster cities to conduct the training, it was decided.

The members from SME further suggested that the SMPIC at NIPER may apply for NABL accreditation. In this connection Dr D Roy suggested to contact the audit team of NABL and he will assist NIPER in obtaining the NABL accreditation. The lab equipment left over from WB project would be used with balancing equipment if needed, it is learnt.