ISLAMABAD: The Federal Drug Surveillance Laboratory (FDSL), which is expected to become a World Health Organisation (WHO) prequalified lab, could not be shifted to its building even after six years as the Federal Medical and Dental College (FMDC) is functional in the building.

The FDSL is one of the most important projects to control the quality of drugs but it is yet to become fully functional.

However, Secretary Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) Ayub Sheikh claimed that efforts were underway to shift the college to a building in Sector G-8 so that the lab can be established in its building. Currently, the lab is set up in a building in Chak Shehzad.

Building constructed for the lab is currently housing Federal Medical and Dental College

The establishment of a credible drug testing laboratory is the most important requirement for the quality control of drugs. New medicines are launched in the market frequently due to which a quality laboratory is required to ensure their quality, safety and effectiveness.

An officer of the ministry of NHS, requesting not to be identified, said the PC-I of the FDSL was approved on May 13, 2006, by the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) and the cost of the project was Rs156.27 million with the completion date being 2007.

“The completion date was extended time to time due to financial crunch. In 2011, it was decided to shift the FDSL to the first floor (12,498 square feet) of the National Control Laboratory (NCL) in Chak Shehzad. But the FMDC was established in the building of the FDSL, which has an area of 32,942 square feet,” he said.

“Because of the decision, both the laboratories - FDSL and NCL - have been facing space problems as they have to carry out experiments and research work,” he said.

“On the other hand, the FMDC, which was established on October 31, 2011, has been facing many issues because it is established in the building which was constructed for a laboratory. Moreover, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council stopped the FMDC from giving further admissions due to a lack of faculty members and other facilities. Now the college has been handed over to Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University (Pims) and has finally started functioning,” he said.

An official of FDSL said the objective of the lab was to ensure availability of quality drugs to the citizens with credible testing system which may obtain the International Certificate and Accreditation by WHO.

“The other purpose of the lab was to test and certify medicines to remove hurdles of the World Trade Organisation and to ensure post-marketing surveillance and encourage local pharmaceutical companies to export their drugs,” he said.

Moreover, it would also be testing pharmaceutical products, doing research and development work besides ensuring bioavailability/bioequivalence studies.

Mr Sheikh told Dawn that the lab should be shifted to its building as soon as possible and that he was working on it.

“We are facing a severe loss because of unavailability of the purpose-built building. We want to have WHO prequalified lab and for that we need to have its building. The matter has been taken up with the college management and it has been decided that the college will be shifted to a building at Sector G-8,” he said.

“We hope that the college will be shifted within one and a half months. After that the alteration done in the building will be removed for which we have arranged funds,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2017