Acknowledging the growing role of India in the international standard setting community, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently gave approval to India to be an active member of the pharmacopoeial discussion group that is currently in the process of being restructured for better harmonisation of drug standards. With this India will be a part of the select elite group of standard setting bodies to play an active role in the WHO's pharmacovigilance programme which is aimed at promoting and safeguarding public health across the world through close collaboration.
This strategic decision was taken during a high profile WHO meeting which was conducted on the sidelines of world pharmacopoeia summit held in Geneva from February 28 to March 2. The Government of India had nominated Dr G N Singh, secretary cum scientific director of IPC, to represent India at this international convention wherein he had proposed the idea to give India a larger role in the pharmacovigilance programme.
The main responsibility of this working group will be to co-ordinate and work on newer methods to achieve harmonisation of drugs, analysing the emerging trends and issues that are affecting the quality of medicines and addressing new challenges through discussions and ideas exchange.
According to Dr Singh, “IPC has always worked towards bringing out authoritative and officially accepted standard for quality of drugs into the country. The latest development shows that the international community has recognised our efforts in ensuring availability of high quality medicines in the country through harmonisation with global standards. With this approval India will get more visibility and voice in the decisions and discussions that are being made at international pharmacopoeial meetings which is not the case today.”
For some time now, through repeated representations the government of India has been consistently pushing to extend WHOs membership in the Pharmacopoeial Discussion Group to India as well. In reply to which WHO has agreed to include India as an active member of its restructured programme that is soon to be launched by the WHO.
Dr Singh who recently took over the additional charges of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) as well informed that the draft of the copy on the reformed programme is awaiting its final approval with the director general of the WHO and is expected to be signed in a weeks time. He added, “Only some formalities are remaining for this reformed programme to come into force after which things will start to roll out accordingly. We are very excited about this membership as it will give us better representation at the international pharmacovigilance community.”
At present there are only five member countries who are part of this group which includes United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) Convention, World Health Organisation (WHO), European Directorate of Quality Medicines (EDQM), British Pharmacopoeia Commission and Japanese Pharmacopoeia Commission.