IIT Ropar Researcher Develops App TO Check Medicine Quality Test

IIT Ropar researcher has developed an app that provides information on the quality testing of the medicine or its manufacturer. The consumer will be able to know whether the medicine or drug has been alerted by the central regulatory authorities or has been recalled after the quality tests have failed.

The researchers said that, as of today, this app uses data from drug quality testing reports made available on the CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organization) website.

They said that the app allows anyone to check past quality checks on drug related events or their manufacturer. The 'badMEDS' app is available on Android and is also available as a responsive web application from anywhere.

Prof. Balwinder Sodhi, Department of Informatics IIT Ropar, who developed the app by collecting data on drugs posted on the CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organization) website, said that he had decided to come up with such an app after he was shocked to learn of the deaths of more than nine infants in Jammu in January of this year following the use of suspected toxic medicines.

He said he was saddened to learn that it was not easy for consumers to have access to information on those drugs or manufacturers selling drugs that had been questioned by the authorities.

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"There are some data available from the CDSCO and we have made publicly available the data from their website. The CDSCO publishes on its website about one such alert every month, giving information about the drugs either recalled or failed to perform quality testing. To date, drug data are available from 2013 onwards, but in the future, we would include more sources of drug quality data in our analytical engine and also improve the features.

Efforts will also be made to gather data from various other sources, news reports, court cases and others on these drugs, "said Prof. Balwinder Sodhi.

Prof. Balwinder added, "There are always apprehensions about the quality of the medicines we buy from a chemist's shop at the back of our minds. In India, consumers do not have easy access, if at all, to information such as the recall of medicines or the failure of quality testing in the case of medicines. A well-informed consumer must browse through the quality test reports of regulators, news items, or the worst search on the Web.

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He added, "Ideally, this type of app should have come from agencies such as CDSCO and other regulators. However, at least they're providing the data that's what I've leveraged in this app. All I did was gather the data from sources like CDSCO and show it in an easily searchable format.