Govt to make procuring drugs simpler

HYDERABAD: The state government will e-procure drugs. For a start, antibiotics for government hospitals will be purchased only from companies with the World Health Organisation’s good manufacturing practices (GMPs) tag.
The e-procure, being devised by the AP Health and Medical Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation, is the first of its kind in the country and will make drug procurement transparent and simpler.
Among other benefits, eprocurement will reduce paper work and processing time and ensure that manufacturers supply directly to government drug stores located in different parts of the state, instead of supplying through the company’s authorised drug dealers.
In addition, multinational drug corporations and small-scale industrial units, who are WHO-GMPcertified will for the first time be able to participate in the procurement process, APHMHIDC general manager (drugs) Dr Y Venkat Rao said.
The move would improve the quality of drugs being supplied to government hospitals and also an effort to reduce prices of drugs supplied to medical institutions under the Directorate of Medical Education, the Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhana Parishad and the Directorate of Health.
Health department officials said it would be possible to ascertain if the total cost of procurement of drugs actually will be reduced as a result of competitive bidding by public, private and SSIs, only after tenders are opened and rates compared with those under the previous procurement system.
Though in 2002 tenders were called for rate contracts from public sector’s drug manufacturing companies for procurement of drugs, none of the companies fulfilled the WHOGMP clause and failed to submit tenders before the last date.
It was in view of this that the government decided to include multinational corporations and SSIs in the procurement process.