Three Pharma Companies Receive GMP

Three Pharma Companies Receive GMP
New Business Age, September 2007

Department of Drug Administration has awarded Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certificates to three pharmaceutical companies - Lomus Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaco Industries and Elder Universal Pharmaceuticals.

The department awards such certificates to those pharmaceutical companies that meet good manufacturing practice standards set by United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO). The department started to award GMPs since 2004.

Meanwhile, four pharma companies have failed to renew their GMP certificates. They are Nepal Pharmaceuticals Lab of Parsa, Omnica Laboratories of Bhaktapur, Quest Pharmaceuticals of Bara and Vijay Deep Laboratories of Harisiddhi, Lalitpur.

Among the 40 pharma-ceutical companies of Nepal, there are only 11 companies which have received the GMPs.

Among the new recipients, Lomus has received the GMP for a period of two years whereas Pharmaco and Elder both have received it for one year.

According to Navin Shrestha, Chief of the Inspection of the Department, Lomus got the GMP for two years mainly because it has been utilizing the most modern technology available so far. Spread across 24000 sq. ft. of area, Lomus factory at Gothatar of Bhaktapur has been producing 250 registered brands of medicine in the forms of tablets, capsules, syrup, gel, dental medicines and different kinds of hormones. Lomus Pharmaceutical has already received ISO 9001 and 14001.

Pharmaco factory is located at Dhalko of Kathmandu whereas Elder Universal has its factory located in Bhairahwa.

Simca Laboratories, with its factory located at Balkumari Thimi of Bhaktapur, was denied the GMP by the Department.

The government has decided to procure medicines for government-run health services only from the GMP certified manufacturers. However, this decision is not yet implemented.

According to one estimate, the Nepali market consumes medicines worth Rs. 9 billion in which the share of the domestic manufacturers is only around 35 percent.