Keynote address: Ripan Mehta, Assistant State Drugs Controller, Haryana, FDA

Ripan Mehta, Assistant State Drugs Controller, Haryana, FDA, initiated his keynote address by shedding light on the quality of drugs that are manufactured in India. Concerned about the quality of drugs, he emphasised that skillfull execution of maintaining the quality of drugs is important. He then talked about the four Ms that are important – Men, Material, Machines and Management – for maintaining the quality of a drug. He also stressed on the fact that all the drug manufacturers should manufacture drugs in such a manner that when needed for their own family members, those are worth recommending. Such should be the quality of drugs manufactured by them.

Moving on, he said that our pharma manufacturers do not have a bad intention. However, due to their ignorance, sometimes mishappenings do occur. He urged all the manufacturers sitting in the hall to be careful as well as compassionate while manufacturing a drug, keeping ethics in mind. He also lamented about the manufacturers being concerned over the repercussions in case of a mishappening, instead of focussing on the rootcause analysis and corrective and preventive actions that would avoid such incidents.

Lastly, mentioning about the efforts taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, he thanked the government of India and pharma manufacturers for their hard work and dedication due to which many lives were saved.