Keen to strengthen the regulatory mechanism through knowledge sharing process, All India Drugs Control Officers' Confederation (AIDCOC) has urged the commerce ministry to continue with the international drug regulatory meet on a regular basis. It is understood that the commerce ministry has already given positive feelers on the same, based on which the Confederation in association with the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) is planning to organize an international drug regulators meet with the SAARC nations.

AIDCOC already had its first meeting with ministry late in March 28, wherein they had  deliberated over different modalities to implement their plans.  This move comes in the wake of urgent need felt by both the national as well international regulators to have a common platform to examine and analyse regulatory topics on a wider scale.

Ravi Uday Bhaskar, secretary general of the AIDCOC pointed out that most importantly such a venture is essential to train the Indian regulators both at the state as well as Centre level about the latest regulatory changes implemented globally as well as nationally.

“It is important to note that today a large section of the drug regulators in the country have very less understanding of the current regulatory requirements of the country, let alone the global requirements. Thus it is important to have such regulatory meet on a frequent basis to timely educate the drug regulators on the important drug regulations. This will not only automatically improve the regulatory standards but also will boost the confidence of the industry as well,” he added.

Bhaskar further informed that following the meeting with the ministry officials they are  finalizing the process of initiating this meet by identifying relevant and critical topics for discussions with the SAARC regulators.
 
Interestingly, this initiative comes following the success of the international regulators meet, which was jointly organised by Pharmexcil, AIDCOC and Indian Pharmaceutical Congress (IPC) recently, to help address regulatory hurdles and ease up regulatory process for exporters. Bhaskar informed that even regulators from UK MHRA, EDQM, US FDA had expressed their interest in having such meetings to simplify and expedite the process aimed at building regulatory capacity and capabilities.

He further added that they are also looking at the possibilities of providing international regulatory training to the state FDA personnel, and CDSCO officials.