<p>Bengaluru: Granting state drug controllers the power to bar out-of-state pharmaceutical companies -- that have allegedly sold spurious drugs -- from selling drugs within the state, until the latter have fixed problems is one of several reforms state health minister <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/dinesh-gundu-rao">Dinesh Gundu Rao</a> has suggested to union health minister <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/j-p-nadda">Jagat Prakash Nadda</a>, to strengthen quality of drugs in the country.</p><p>In a letter to Nadda, Gundurao referenced the Ballari maternal deaths to note that incidents involving non-standard quality (NSQ) drugs were on the rise across the country.</p><p>He indicated that due to the limitations of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, certain issues persist with assessing the capabilities of out-of-state manufacturers. </p><p>“The pharmaceutical company located in West Bengal can sell its drugs in all states across the country, despite being licensed and inspected only by drug inspectors in the state where its manufacturing facility is located,” he explained.</p><p>This meant that there was little states could do to stop poorly manufactured drugs from entering their pharmacies. He wrote that, of the 894 drug samples tested in Karnataka over the past two years, 601 samples which failed the drug standards and quality tests were from manufacturers based out of other states. </p>.Karnataka government offers to pay Rs 9.5k as advance to ASHA workers.<p>Criminal prosecutions are time-consuming, and do not stop the supply of an under-investigation company’s drugs in the state’s markets.</p><p>Promoting greater information sharing between drug control departments of state governments and various public procurement agencies, having inspection reports, manufacturer licensing information, and drug testing laboratories’ test reports on a centralised database would enable drugs inspectors and the Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation (KSMSCL), for example, to track a manufacturer’s failed tests and make better procurement decisions, he suggested.</p><p>Besides this, he suggested having a central register which recorded manufacturers blacklisted by different agencies for supplying NSQ drugs and equipping states with the powers to temporarily block under-investigation manufacturers from selling their drugs in the state.</p>
<p>Bengaluru: Granting state drug controllers the power to bar out-of-state pharmaceutical companies -- that have allegedly sold spurious drugs -- from selling drugs within the state, until the latter have fixed problems is one of several reforms state health minister <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/dinesh-gundu-rao">Dinesh Gundu Rao</a> has suggested to union health minister <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/j-p-nadda">Jagat Prakash Nadda</a>, to strengthen quality of drugs in the country.</p><p>In a letter to Nadda, Gundurao referenced the Ballari maternal deaths to note that incidents involving non-standard quality (NSQ) drugs were on the rise across the country.</p><p>He indicated that due to the limitations of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, certain issues persist with assessing the capabilities of out-of-state manufacturers. </p><p>“The pharmaceutical company located in West Bengal can sell its drugs in all states across the country, despite being licensed and inspected only by drug inspectors in the state where its manufacturing facility is located,” he explained.</p><p>This meant that there was little states could do to stop poorly manufactured drugs from entering their pharmacies. He wrote that, of the 894 drug samples tested in Karnataka over the past two years, 601 samples which failed the drug standards and quality tests were from manufacturers based out of other states. </p>.Karnataka government offers to pay Rs 9.5k as advance to ASHA workers.<p>Criminal prosecutions are time-consuming, and do not stop the supply of an under-investigation company’s drugs in the state’s markets.</p><p>Promoting greater information sharing between drug control departments of state governments and various public procurement agencies, having inspection reports, manufacturer licensing information, and drug testing laboratories’ test reports on a centralised database would enable drugs inspectors and the Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation (KSMSCL), for example, to track a manufacturer’s failed tests and make better procurement decisions, he suggested.</p><p>Besides this, he suggested having a central register which recorded manufacturers blacklisted by different agencies for supplying NSQ drugs and equipping states with the powers to temporarily block under-investigation manufacturers from selling their drugs in the state.</p>