Drap inaugurates system to switch to paperless working environment.

Byline: Ikram Junaidi

ISLAMABAD -- The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) has finally started moving towards an organised system which will help it get World Health Organisation (WHO)'s listed authorities (WLA) permission to export medicines.

The authority on Tuesday inaugurated the Pakistan Integrated Regulatory Information Management System (PIRIMS) to switch to a paperless working environment.

The system integrates licensing, registration, inspection and pharmaco-vigilance activities besides providing a platform to the pharmaceutical industry for submission of applications, regulatory correspondence and feedback/complaint mechanism to address problems faced by the applicants.

Drap's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Asim Rauf told Dawn that an organised automated system had been introduced in the authority.

'Even steps taken by officers would be documented and recorded to know what kind of changes are made on files and for how long a file stayed at each desk. The record would be saved for good. Moreover, performance of the staff would be evaluated on the basis of the record,' he said.

Replying to a question, he said earlier Pakistan was trying to get Level III Accreditation but recently WHO changed it into WLA which is a bit more advanced and close to level IV accreditation.

'It was demand of the WHO to introduce PIRIMS which is a requirement for WLA. Now we would move to get WLA accreditation which would allow us to export medicines to a number of countries. Currently, only developed countries of European Union, America and Asia have the WLA. Even countries like China, India and Turkey lack such...