The Small and Medium Pharmaceutical Industry Centre (SMPIC), set up at NIPER, Mohali, will prepare the entire gamut of services it can offer to the industry and assess the services, projects and training programmes and modules required for delivering all possible assistance to the SME industry at the earliest.

The consultative committee headed by Lalit Kumar Jain is holding its second meeting on May 7, to discuss various aspects and measures to place SMPIC on full stream. The meeting among other things will also look into the steps so far taken, including the NABL accreditation for the laboratories. The first meeting of the panel had set up a sub-committee to prepare the training programmes and modules and the report of the committee would be discussed by the consultative committee. It will also look into the suggestions and inputs received from the industry on the SMPIC, sources said.

Requirement of bio-equivalence centre, procedure and process for carrying out the sub – coetaneous toxicities studies, services it can offer in connection with impurity preparations and characterisations, stability studies, documentation for various regulatory requirements etc will be among those matters coming up for discussion. The panel may also request the NIPER faculty for services of making dossiers, CTD formats, regulatory guidelines, market research studies of each country for exports of drugs and request NIPER to form a committee of faculty of medicinal chemistry, natural products, CIL, biotechnological departments and pharmaceutics department to provide services for input – output norms on over 500 applications pending with DGFT (Ministry of Commerce).

The committee would also consider the projects like laboratory for API, herbals and formulations required at the centre. The panel would look into all possible helps it can offer to the industry in way of technical assistance, studies, piloting, training, etc.

NIPER, Mohali is at present concentrating on basic research. The SME industry has suggested that NIPER should also take up applied research, green chemistry, use of immobilized enzymes (biotechnology) etc. so that the SME sector can gain advantage for exports e.g. a reduction of steps in manufacturers of API’s, comparative studies of old and safe molecules vis –a- vis new molecules offered for patent in India etc. The committee will discuss the same and take the necessary steps, sources said.