Central Drugs Laboratories find 52 drug samples to be 'not of standard quality'

New Delhi: The Central Drugs Laboratories found 52 drug samples manufactured by various firms to be "not of standard quality" (NSQ) in its monthly drug alert for February, health ministry officials said on Friday.

Further, the State Drugs Testing Laboratories identified 93 drug samples as NSQ in November, they said.

As per routine regulatory surveillance activity, the list of NSQ drugs are being displayed on the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) portal on monthly basis.

Identification of drug samples as NSQ is done based on failure of the drug sample in one or the other specified quality parameters, officials said.

The failure is specific to the drug products of the batch tested by the government laboratory and it does not warrant any concerns on the other drug products available in the market, an official said.

Salient feature of this month's NSQ reporting has been the continuous increase in participation of states in reporting NSQs to the central database.

This action of identifying NSQ and spurious medicines is taken on a regular basis in collaboration with state regulators to ensure that these drugs are identified and removed from the market, the official said.