Solan: QR coding now mandatory for pharma ingredients
Ambika Sharma
Solan, January 18
The much-awaited quick response (QR)-based system for the sale of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the raw material used for manufacturing drugs, has become operational from January.
The new system will ensure that APIs sold in the market adhere to the set standards, thus maintaining the efficacy and genuineness of the manufactured drugs. The code can be scanned to obtain the details of the product. Manufacturers have for long been flagging the non-availability of quality APIs, claiming suppliers were re-labelling and re-packing the original product after its import.
Rajesh Gupta, president of the pharmaceutical section of Laghu Udyog Bharati, a grouping for micro and small-scale industries, said the introduction of QR code would help companies understand when the product was imported, besides ensuring the quality of the drugs. He said the system would also ensure that the product was sold at genuine rates as there was a tendency to hoard the APIs and sell these at inflated rates whenever there was a crisis.
“The issue was actively taken up by the Himachal Drugs Manufacturers Association as well as the Laghu Udyog Bharati, following which it was referred by the Drugs Controller General of India to the drugs technical advisory committee,” said Gupta. The committee had recommended the QR code tracing and tracking system in 2019. It was finally notified in January 2022, though its implementation was delayed for a year to allow the API traders to sell their old stock.
Gupta demanded that the old stock should also be sold with QR code as the system had already become operational. “This will promote quality drug manufacturing. The system will specially help manufacturing states like Himachal Pradesh where 650 pharmaceutical units are housed in the industrial hubs of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh, Kala Amb, Paonta Sahib, Parwanoo, etc.,” he said.
As many as 54 drug samples have been declared substandard in the state over the last two months. A majority of these lacked the desired level of assay, which is the active ingredient in a drug that determines its efficacy. Manufacturers, at times, attribute this to the substandard API, which is difficult to be pre-tested before manufacturing.
SL Singla, a Baddi-based manufacturer, said the QR code would allow tracing of APIs to its origin for verification. He said QR-code based APIs had already started arriving in the market, which was a positive step for the pharmaceutical industry.
How it will help
- QR coding will ensure that active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) adhere to quality standards
- The code can be scanned to verify the origin of raw material used for manufacturing drugs
- The system comes following complaints of re-labelling of original product after import
