In 2009, about 5% of drugs on the market were substandard, while spurious drugs were twice as high as current levels. The incidence of substandard medicine in India has come down substantially in the last five years, findings of a latest study show.
The survey, conducted by the National Institute of Biologics, was based on 47,954 samples of medicines collected by central and central drug inspectors across the country. The samples were tested in the seven central laboratories and the three government drug testing laboratories.
During a survey conducted in 2014-16 across the country, around 3% of medicines in the market were found to be of substandard or not of standard quality, whereas 0.023% were spurious or counterfeit drugs.
The results show sub-standard drugs were more common in some states such as Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Puducherry, Gujarat and Punjab. The percentage of substandard drugs in these states ranged from 4.2% to 8.82%. States like Goa, West Bengal, Delhi, Jharkhand and Kerala were on the lower side with "no standard quality drugs" ranging from 0-1.97%.
Health ministry officials said the improvement is a result of stringent regulation, better monitoring, surveillance and enforcement of good manufacturing practices.
“The estimated percentage of ‘not of standard quality’ and spurious drugs from retail outlets in the country was 3% and 0.023% respectively,” the report of the findings of the survey said.
The Indian drug retail market is pegged at over Rs 1 lakh crore annually. India is also one of the major suppliers of low-cost generic medicines and vaccines to the world. While many Indian companies had to face ban and warnings in some of developed market between 2010-13, the industry has revived with better compliance in last few years.
