The Drug Control Administration is in the process of setting up a modern drug-testing laboratory in Hyderabad to help improve the overall quality of drugs and control the spread of sub-standard and spurious drugs in the state. The laboratory is under construction adjacent to the DCA office at Vengal Rao Nagar. The fully-equipped testing laboratory, funded by the Drug Controller-General of India, would be operational by the end of 2004.

According to P Ananthasayanam Reddy, Additional Director-General, Drugs & Copyright, DCA, the drug-testing laboratories, when operational, would emerge as the biggest facility in the South for testing pharma and biotech products. Even with the limited existing facilities, the DCA had been able to achieve 80-85 % prosecution rate relating to cases of spurious and sub-standard drugs. Nearly 830 cases were pending in the courts, which was second only to Maharashtra where more than 1,000 cases were being fought.

Claiming that the enforcement was higher in AP, Reddy said in the case of spurious drugs the DCA had cut short the procedure to ensure quick justice. “We get the seized samples tested in one of the eight private laboratories given approval by the DCA and provide the necessary evidence at the earliest, thereby cutting down unnecessary delays,” Reddy said.

Among some of its achievements, Reddy said the DCA was able to bring a spurious drug manufacturer to book and got a 13-year jail term for him. In another case, a person was handed out a 11-year sentence.

The increasing number of cases and seizures of spurious drugs and drugs not of standard quality did not mean that drug companies in Andhra Pradesh were producing low quality drugs. The major sources of spurious and sub-standard drugs were Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. In fact, drug manufacturers in the state had been constantly improving quality and the growth in their exports was rather impressive, Reddy said.