Himachal’s first drug testing lab begins operations at pharma hub Baddi

Eight years after receipt of Central funds, the state’s first drug testing laboratory equipped with state-of-the-art testing facilities became functional at Baddi today.
Quality drug manufacturing will get a boost with this lab as the drug inspectors will be able to step up sampling of drugs. Earlier such samples were sent to labs in Chandigarh which was a time-consuming process.
Its work has been outsourced to Panchkula-based ITC Labs which will be paid Rs 6 crore annually by the state government to operate this lab. They have deputed 30-40 technicians and 10 administrative officials while the state government has provided two government analysts to oversee its functioning.
The Rs 32 crore lab will cater to the 650-odd industrial units. Earlier only limited drug testing was undertaken in the absence of a lab.
With 15 sophisticated HPCL machines and other paraphernalia, the preliminary testing was undertaken on 70 drug samples today.
State Drugs Controller, Manish Kapoor, while confirming the news, said, “The drug inspectors have been directed to step up drug sampling for regular testing which will also help maintain a check on the drug quality. The lab has a capacity to test 8,000- 10,000 drug samples annually.”
Despite housing Asia’s biggest pharmaceutical hub in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial belt, the state lacked a fully equipped drug-testing laboratory.
The need to set up such a lab assumes significance as the drug samples from the state’s drug firms repeatedly fail quality parameters.
“With the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation imposing stringent conditions such as bio-equivalence and stability data for every product, absence of such a lab forced the industry to outsource such tests to private labs. The creation of a stability chamber and related facilities is a costly affair for small manufacturers,” said a pharmaceutical manufacturer who welcomed setting up of the lab.
The Union government had provided Rs 30 crore to the state Health Department in 2017 to set up this lab under the 12th Five-Year Plan. Remaining funds were pooled by the state government as part of its share.
A building was purchased from the HP Housing and Urban Development Authority for this lab in 2017 but setting up of the lab was hanging fire for nearly eight years. Public-sector enterprise HCL had set up the lab.
Though the lab was inaugurated in April last year it could not be made functional as the state had to seek permission from the Centre to run this lab as it lacked the requisite mandate to operate such a lab.
Source: Tribuneindia

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