New Delhi, February 28 (PIB): India needs to produce high-quality medicines and medical products for both domestic and export markets, said Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Chemicals and Fertilisers, at the concluding session of the two-day brainstorming session on “Drugs: Quality Regulations & Enforcement”. He also said that both the Centre and State Governments need to work in tandem for setting up robust regulatory systems.

He further highlighted that the deep session of the Chintan Shivir provided a platform to all stakeholders to deliberate on different aspects of building a robust, resilient, transparent, accountable and citizen-friendly drugs-regulatory framework. This framework will ensure not only quality but easy availability and accessibility across the country of the highest quality of drugs and medical devices. The intense deliberations provided an opportunity to all the participants to work in a team spirit to deliberate on the building blocks of such a forward looking inclusive, holistic and comprehensive regulatory framework that would set the vision and meet the requirements of the next 25 years on the three levels of policy, priorities and implementation.

Enthusing the participants, the Union Health Minister stated, “Our vision is to be known as the world’s most respected and recognised drugs regulator. This can only happen when we move from generic to quality-generic drugs and medical devices production in the country. Our drugs regulatory systems ought to meet the needs to R&D, innovation, organisation strengthening and capacity enhancement.”

The discussions highlighted how to make the country’s drugs regulatory systems transparent, predictable and verifiable through principles of uniform standards, sturdy structures for compliance and enforcement, and capacity enhancement. It was also presented that technology can play the role of a facilitator and enabler for uniformity, transparency and accountability. The need for a uniform portal with national database with integrated legacy systems was also discussed. Shifting from minimal to optimal standards with provision of periodic reviews, global benchmarking for not only drugs but medical devises formed integral part of the session today. Several participants underlined the importance of creating citizen facing measures to strengthen confidence on the quality of drugs along with portals for grievances, effective recall measures etc.

In addition, oversight of supply chain was also proposed for quality assurance. In order to provide a platform to learn from the experience of other states, best practices of drug regulation from various states were shared by the state health representatives.

Participating in the conclave, Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar appreciated the collaborative spirit with which Centre and States participated in the meeting. She also urged the industry representatives to bring out innovation solutions with particular focus on AMR which is emerging as a silent pandemic.

At the two-day Chintan Shivir, Dr Mandaviya led the participants for yoga and meditation sessions to promote healthy lifestyle practices.

 Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary, S Aparna, Union Pharma Secretary, Dr Rajiv Bahl, Secretary, Department of Health Research, Shri S Gopalakrishnan, Special Secretary, Union Health Ministry, Shri G Kamala Vardhana Rao, CEO, FSSAI, Dr Atul Goel, Director General of Health Sciences and Dr Rajeev Raghuvanshi, Drug Controller General of India, were present on the occasion.

Rajiv Wadhawan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Dr N Yuvaraj, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Chemical & Fertilizers and other senior officers and representatives from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers, NITI Aayog, NPPA, DGHS, ICMR, NIPERs, Central Drug Laboratories also participated in the two-day long brainstorming conclave.