Pharmaceutical quality

- Ganadhish Kamat Introduction India is considered as the Pharmacy of the world and supplies high quality medicines to countries world over. While Indian drug manufacturers are capable of supplying high quality medicines at low price, can all the medicines available in India be considered to be of same quality? First of all, how do you define the quality of medicines?  Applying simple definition of Quality, "Fit for the purpose", a good quality medicine should produce desired effect after administration (Efficacy) without producing any undesired & harmful effect (Safety). Incase of products such as apparels, footwear, consumer products, food articles, electronics etc, consumers can judge the quality themselves based on sensory evaluation or evaluation of performance by actual use. If they are not happy with the quality, they have choice of not buying the product again or even sometimes returning it. This however is not possible for consumers of medicines (patients). Excep