In a step that would enable states and stakeholders to refer to information about pharma firms, the health ministry has embarked on a project to prepare a national level list of pharma companies, which have been granted licence to manufacture and market medicine in the country.

It is rather surprising that India despite being the fourth largest drug producer by volumes doesn?t have an official consolidated directory at the national level. An attempt to compile the names and address of drug firms of the country had been made by the drug price control regulator National Pharma Pricing Authority (in 2007) that falls under the ambit of ministry of chemicals and fertilisers.

However, the directory that has compiled names and addresses of around 10,563 odd firms comes with a disclaimer that says, ?The names, addresses and other details of pharmaceutical manufacturing units contained herein do not purport to be an authentic version of these units?.

In the foreword of the directory, the then NPPA chairman and the present secretary of department of pharma, Ashok Kumar also says,

?There is no authentic consolidated list of manufacturers of pharma units in the country. There is therefore, a need to bring out such a publication?.

Although the directory contains names and address of drug firms it doesn?t include information on the drugs that have been licensed to manufacture and market.

The sources of the database are Annual Survey of Industries, All India Census of Small Scale Industries, the Indian Pharma Reference Guide, inputs from state governments, and some websites among others.

The drug price control regulator also undertook the as one of its functions includes collection of statistics related to pharma industry.

For the official directory now being planned, The Drug Controller General of India under the ministry of health would be the nodal agency responsible for the final compilation. The drug consultative committee has constituted a core committee, which has started working on a common format based on which state drug regulators are collecting information. The sub-committee responsible for preparing a common format in collaboration with NIC or NIC like agency selected for preparation of software and categorisation of the products licensed under various licences issued has State Drug Controllers of Karnataka, Kerala, Delhi and Nagaland as its members. The committee is expected to give its reports in two months.

It would be the state drug regulators which would provide the list of licensed drug manufacturers under their jurisdiction for compilation.

Manufacturing licences are granted by the state licensing authorities in the country, therefore the information has to be consolidated at the state level for preparing the national list of manufacturers in the country. The Centre will then prepare a national list of drug manufacturers in the country. The list would be put up on the website and made available to the state licensing authorities for cross-reference purposes. The final list would be compiled at the centre under the supervision of DCGI.

The directory would make it easy to trace and track pharma companies located throughout the country.