Pharmexcil, which has set up a committee to boost exports of medicinal plants and related value added products, plans to create awareness among the exporters of ISM drugs on the importance of maintaining quality standards in various stages of drug manufacturing and exports, and to initiate a quality certification process.

The expert Committee, which met recently under the chairmanship of Dr Ashok DB Vaidya, the Medical and Research director of Bhavan's SPARC at Mumbai, has decided to address the problems faced by the exporters of ISM sector in meeting the requirements of quality related to heavy metals, microbiological problems and other aspects.

Majority of the exporters of Ayurvedic and herbal products are in medium and small scale sector who need lot more guidance on the quality aspect to be met before exporting herbal products abroad. The Committee will also look into creating greater awareness on heavy metal contamination, acceptable level for the same, validation and standardization, providing list of approved and accredited laboratories across the country, as a support to the industry.

"A one-day focused seminar would be organised on this specific issue in Hyderabad within the next two months to educate the exporters. We will also look at evolving a quality certification process for Ayurvedic and herbal products for export," said Dr PV Appaji, executive director of Pharmexcil.

"The Ayurvedic & herbal industry will need to be aware of and gear to meet requirements of quality of countries abroad. We would try to help in guiding the industry so that India can grow to get a larger share of the world's herbal market," added Dr Vaidya.

The committee also discussed the issue related to the 'ban' imposed on a few Indian Ayurvedic drugs in Canada, US and UK. "There appears to be a misinformation that ayurvedic medicines have been banned in some of the developed countries. What Canada and UK have issued are only health alerts. Issuing health alerts to caution public to be careful about various products they buy is a regular feature of any regulatory authorities world over," noted Dr Ashok Vaidya.

Few Sub-Committees were formed in the recently held first meeting of the Committee to work on International Corporate Affairs, Export Certification Process, Financing & Venture Capital for herbal industry and Market information in various countries. Pharmexcil has been entrusted with the responsibility of promotion of exports of herbal medicines from India as a thrust area. Earlier, this aspect was taken care by a sub-panel in Chemexcil.