Overview

Recently Americans have discovered that most of the domestic drugs used in the United States are imported from India. Consequently, the Food and Drug administration (FDA) launched a search of Indian pharmaceutical companies to determine whether or not the process met the standards that the FDA implemented on domestic companies.

Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA, began her investigation on her trip to India. Many have mixed views on her reports, because she seems to be looking for a scapegoat to blame for recent problems with pharmaceutical drugs. She is quoted to have said that her reasons for attending were, “Recent lapses in quality at a handful of pharmaceutical firms,” which caused concern among Indian companies. Indian companies produce around 40 percent of the pharmaceutical supplies used around the world, which would logically make them the main target for such an investigation.

What’s Next

Multiple sources indicate that a possible solution to the problem would be a regulatory commission that would enforce FDA standards. Unquestionably, this may solve part of the problem; however, this solution doesn’t seem to understand the current Indian working situation. According to UNICEF; India ranked in the bottom ½ of all countries in the following categories:

• Use of improved sanitation facilities (rural)
• Use of improved sanitation facilities (total)

These issues create problems with how long would it take before the Regulatory commissions begin to deal out penalties. That may result in the closing of most of the pharmaceutical companies. Which in turn would result in more turmoil within India.

Solution

There seems to be two solutions to the problem at hand, the first would be to regulate the domestic pharmaceutical drugs that are readily available to the people. The CFR has interrogated multiple Pharmaceutical Companies’ executives; they came to the consensus that it may be necessary to make sure that the people are getting a good product, as well as clear the air around Indian companies. This solution was actually proposed Roger Jeffery, from the University of Edinburgh. He indicates that pharmaceutical companies need to have some restraint out upon them via commissions. He also indicates that developmental countries like India can eventually develop into cosmopolitans that produce copious amounts of prescriptions drugs, but until then, it needs to be regulated by a code of law.

The second solution would a modernization of the Indian pharmaceutical system as a whole. Although this may be difficult, multiple sources indicate that Indian modernization is possible and upcoming which would solve the pharmaceutical discrepancies between the FDA, and Indian companies. These sources look to the positive sides of modernizing statistics in India which include:

• Total adult literacy increased by 62.8%.
• Total enrollment of kids in schools increase by 98.6%
• Life Expectancy: 66.2 years old

These statistics all indicate that the future generations of Indians, will inevitably modernize, but that the status quo problem still remains, mitigating modernization’s real success.

[Image Attribute: Pixabay]