Union Health Secretary Urges Stronger Drug Regulations for Quality Control

In a meeting of state drug regulators held on Monday under the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastav stressed the importance of strengthening regulatory standards to ensure that only high-quality and effective medicines circulate in the country. She urged state authorities to enforce stricter controls on drug sales to curb the misuse of psychotropic substances.

Srivastav commended the CDSCO and state drug regulators for conducting risk-based inspections of 905 drug manufacturing and testing firms. So far, these inspections have led to 694 regulatory actions in line with the commitment of the government towards drug safety and compliance.

This meeting took place after a major decision by the Drugs Controller General of India, DCGI, which recently banned the production and export of all combinations of pain relief medicines tapentadol and carisoprodol. The decision arose from reports that a pharma company based in Mumbai had exported unapproved combinations of these medicines to West African countries, contributing to an opioid crisis in this region.

Srivastav's call for the restriction of prescriptions on the sale of drugs reflects the government focus addressing the challenge of abuse of controlled substances while protecting the safety and ensuring compliance to be a priority ever since.