The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) India Initiative, a public health organisation dedicated to protecting consumers from spurious and not-of-standard medicines, organised its second national training workshop on 'Secured Medicines & Robust Pharmacovigilance' in Mumbai recently. The first workshop was organised in Bengaluru last week.

The event brought together government, industry and healthcare stakeholders to help stop the spread of spurious medicines. Guest speakers at the event included C P Singh, chairman, NPPA; Dr V G Somani, Joint Drugs Controller India; Dr Surinder Singh, director, National Institute of Biologicals; Mahesh Zagade, FDA Commissioner, Maharashtra; Dr Sanjay Oak, vice chancellor, D Y Patil Medical University, Mumbai and Dr Pervez Ahmed, a leading Private Sector Healthcare Provider and vice chairman, PSM India Initiative.

The workshop discussed near-term solutions that help train healthcare professionals, patients, consumer groups and other stakeholders throughout India and beyond.

The key points that were discussed during the workshop included the role of central government on patient safety and quality health; role of state government on strengthening regulatory drug/regulatory mechanism; role of NCC in PvPl; role of ADR monitoring centres; role of pharmacopoeia standards in identification of spurious medicines; impact of non-adherence to medication compliance; technology measures integrations in ADRs monitoring; and community engagement and communication on PvPI.