Karnataka drugs control department has received a budget allocation of Rs.40.27 crore for this fiscal 2015-16. The state government‘s budget allocation for the health and family welfare department is Rs.6,107 crore. The department will now use the funds to strengthen its activities in the area of enforcement and inspections.

“Our primary focus for 2015-16 would be sampling of drugs from pharmacy outlets which are particularly medicines for hypertensive and diabetes, Raghurama Bhandary, drugs controller, government of Karnataka told Pharmabiz.

“The selection of the two therapeutic categories is based on the maximum sales garnered by pharmacy outlets and pharma companies from these drugs. Since these are high volume and high sale products, we need to ensure its high quality standards. This is also because these are drugs for life style disorders which are becoming a highly prevalent condition, mandating medication to stall on set of complications”, he added.

In fact, it is also observed that there is clearly a 20 per cent increase in sales for drugs in this category, which only indicates the rising consumption and the need for patients to have access to standard quality medicines. Therefore, the enforcement team will provide additional focus to these drugs during their surprise and frequent inspection drives, said the Karnataka drugs controller.

For the analysis of these drugs, there will be no additional drugs test labs. The department would only maximize the testing capability and ensure accurate and speedy reports from the existing three labs at Bengaluru, Hubbali formerly Hubli and Belagavi, erstwhile Bellary, he said.

For 2015-16, the effort would be to beef up inspections to ensure total adherence to Drugs & Cosmetic Act. So far, the regular inspections of the over 23,000 pharmacy outlets in Karnataka have resulted in several prosecutions. Early this week, the enforcement wing seized DSR (rabeprazole & domperidone) capsules worth Rs.2.31 lakh which was manufactured by Serus Biotech at Solan district in Himachal Pradesh.

Further, the department also trapped pharmacy outlets in Dakshina Kannada district and Bengaluru which found violating Schedule H1, of the Drugs & Cosmetic Act. While the outlet in Dakshina Kannada was caught for selling cough syrup bottles with codeine content, the Bengaluru outlet for sale of Fortwin injections which are both addiction drugs. This has proved the strict surveillance by enforcement teams. Filing of prosecutions is the prime responsibility of the state regulatory authority, said the Karnataka drugs controller.