Pharmaceutical Chamber to upgrade quality

Anjana SAMARASINGHE

Small Scale Pharmaceutical industrialists have set up a Chamber of Small Scale Pharmaceutical Industry (CSSPI) to upgrade the manufacturing process and standards of the industry.

Secretary, CSSPI Mahinda Fernando told Daily News Business that there are a large number of small scale pharmaceutical industrialists who are not registered with the Cosmetics, Devices and Drugs Authority. The Government is loosing a considerable amount of revenue due to these unregistered industrialists. These industrialists import cosmetics, devices such as syringes, drugs and manufacturing drugs.

Most of these industrialists are unaware of registration and the process. This will have a negative impact on the standards of the industry. Through this Chamber we expect to educate the industrialists and strengthen the regulatory process in the industry, he said. Local manufacturers produce only 12 percent of the total drug consumption of the country and as the Chamber we expect to increase this amount and reduce the drug import bill of the country, he said.

Most drug manufacturers source their raw materials from the open market in Pettah and at times these suppliers do not provide a quality assurance certificate for these materials and this will badly impact on the quality of the end product.

The Chamber is working on a mechanism where the Government could import these raw materials by calling for international bids to upgrade the quality of the drugs manufactured in Sri Lanka.

The Chamber will also explore the possibility of exporting drugs to countries such as the Maldives.

“We are planning to have a special laboratory to test the contents of the drugs manufactured in Sri Lanka to uplift the quality of the drugs manufactured in Sri Lanka”, he said.