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Recently, the Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister said that government is proactively looking to provide industrial park facilities to grow active pharmaceutical ingredient (API)
What is the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API)?
According to WHO API is any substance(biologically active) or combination of substances used in a finished pharmaceutical product (FPP), intended to furnish pharmacological activity or to otherwise have direct effect in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease, or to have direct effect in restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions in human being.
In medicine, API produces the intended effects to cure the disease. For instance, Paracetamol is the API for Crocin and it is the API paracetamol that gives relief from body ache and fever.
Status of API production in India
- India currently sources 70-80% of APIs and key starting material for drug formulation from China because of cost viability
- In the 2018-19 fiscal, the government had informed the Lok Sabha that the country’s drug-makers had imported bulk drugs and intermediates worth $ 2.4 billion from China
