Mumbai : The Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the British Pharmacopoeia Commission (BPC) for knowledge sharing on pharmacopoeial standards.
Through this MoU, both the institutions will recognize the importance of developing close cooperation and exchange of information in the field of regulation of medicines with special reference to pharmacopoeial standards in accordance with their respective laws and regulations.
This will also ensure both organizations to explore opportunities for technical cooperation in areas of mutual benefit in the development of monographs and future technologies.
It will also help adopt harmonizing standards, exchanging information on quality of medicines and sharing technical expertise on the development of monographs and test methods.
The areas of co-operation will be broad and cover development of standards for active pharmaceutical ingredients as well as finished products. This partnership will also support exchanges of technical and scientific expertise and skill development in the subject area for the benefit of public health.
Ghaziabad based IPC is an autonomous institution of the Union Health Ministry of the Government of India. IPC has been created to set standards of drugs in the country. Its basic function is to update regularly the standards of drugs commonly required for treatment of diseases prevailing in this region.
It publishes official documents for improving quality of medicines by way of adding new and updating existing monographs in the form of Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP).
It further promotes rational use of generic medicines by publishing National Formulary of India (NFI).
IP prescribes standards for identity, purity and strength of drugs essentially required from health care perspective of human beings and animals. IPC also provides IP Reference Substances (IPRS) which act as a finger print for identification of an article under test and its purity as prescribed in IP.
