Kenyan drug regulators in a recent visit to India expressed keen interest in adopting the Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administrations (FDCAs) e-governance programme i.e. the self-licensing software, Xtended Licensing and Laboratory Note (XLN) in their country.

This was conveyed by the team of Kenyan regulators headed by Dr Ahmed I Mohamed, director of the inspection and surveillance team from the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB), the drug regulatory authority of Kenya, during a high profile, first of its kind, visit to the state drug regulators office. It is understood that the Kenyan drug regulators were very impressed by the systematic performance of this software which enabled the FDCA to regulate the sales and manufacturing aspects related to drugs, food and cosmetics; issuance of licenses etc.

Dr H G Koshia, commissioner, Gujarat FDCA, pointed out that they were very interested in knowing more about the feature of this software which specifically enables on-line registration of all the pharmacists and chemists, preventing multiple illegal enrollment of pharmacists. He pointed out that through this initiative they hope to re-organise their regulatory set up in a similar model, to ensure better control and effective monitoring of the activities of the stakeholders in their country.

“We had a very productive interactive meeting with the Kenyan regulators which mainly focused on strengthening the regulatory apparatus for ensuring best healthcare services to the patients. This also emphasises on the growing importance of the Indian made affordable generic drugs in Kenya and the confidence they have in the drugs that are manufactured and exported from India especially Gujarat,” Dr Koshia added.

He informed visits like this highlights the growing confidence that the foreign drug regulators have begun to put on the state drug regulator for ensuring best regulatory practices in the state. This is not the first time that a foreign drug regulator has shown their interest in adopting the e governance initiative, a first of kind in the country, to be adopted in their respective state.

Many other African countries have already shown same interest in the past.  This is not the first time that the e-governance programme attracted other regulatory agencies. Gujarat government was just recently recognised with the excellence in IT award 2012, in healthcare sector, for the XLN by the Computer Society of India (CSI), which makes the Gujarat FDCA the only government regulatory agency to be recognised with this prestigious award for its unique and patient-industry friendly initiative.