Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission

Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) is an autonomous institution of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which sets standards for all drugs that are manufactured, sold and consumed in India.^[3] The set of standards are published under the title Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP) which has been modelled over and historically follows from the British Pharmacopoeia. The standards that are in effect since December 1, 2010,^[4] is the Indian Pharmacopoeia 2010 (IP 2010). The Pharmacopoeia 2014 was released by Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on November 4, 2013.^[5]

I.P., the abbreviation of 'Indian Pharmacopoeia' is familiar to the consumers in the Indian sub-continent as a mandatory drug name suffix. Drugs manufactured in India have to be labelled with the mandatory non-proprietary drug name with the suffix I.P. This is similar to the B.P. suffix for British Pharmacopoeia and the U.S.P. suffix for the United States Pharmacopeia.

The IPC was formed according to the Indian Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940 and established by executive orders of the Government of India in 1945.

Pharmacopoeia - History of publication

The actual process of publishing the first Pharmacopoeia started in the year 1944 under the chairmanship of Col. R. N. Chopra. The I. P. list was first published in the year 1946 and was put forth for approval. The titles are suffixed with the respective years of publication, e.g. IP 1996.

• 1st edition I. P. 1955 was published in the official gazette. Dr. B. N. Ghosh, Chairman
  • Supplement 1960
• 2nd edition I. P. 1966 Dr. B. Mukherji, Chairman,Shankar S.
  • Supplement 1975
• 3rd edition I. P. 1985 Dr. Nityanand, Chairman
  • I Addendum/Supplement 1989
  • II Addendum/Supplement 1991
• 4th edition I. P. 1996 Dr. Nityanand, Chairman
  • III Addendum/ Supplement 2000
  • IV Addendum/ Supplement 2002
• 5th edition I. P. 2007 Dr. Nityanand, Chairman
• 6th edition I. P. 2010

* Addendum - 2012

• 7th edition I. P. 2014
  • V Addendum/Supplement 2015

References