Quality Local Production Training Workshop

Overview

During the Director General (DG) WHO’s and Regional Director (RD) SEARO’s visit to Kathmandu, Nepal, there was a request from the Ministry of Health and Population, Nepal (MoHP) to improve and facilitate domestic production of essential drugs and surgical care products. Hence, a scoping mission was taken up by IPT during 20–24 March 2023 to identify priority areas for technical support to facilitate domestic production of essential medicines in Nepal.

The activity is in line with the World Health Assembly resolution WHA74.6 “Strengthening local production of medicines and other health technologies to improve access to medicines” and the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property – GSPA-PHI, WHA61.2 – extended in May 2022 until 2030.

Based on the above, detailed deliberations were held with MoHP and WCO Nepal colleagues during the scoping visit, and in consultation with WR Nepal, it was decided to support a training workshop based on a request from the Department of Drug Administration (DDA), Nepal.

The training workshop was held in Kathmandu, Nepal, from 21 to 23 May 2024. WHO Country Office and SEARO were supported by DDA, who also engaged with the Association of Pharmaceutical Producers of Nepal (APPON). This is a report on the activity and resultant outcomes.

The main objective of the training workshop was to provide training to manufacturing industries in Nepal and officials of DDA for:

• technical support to facilitate domestic production of essential medicines; and
• capacity-building of local manufacturers of medicines on cGMP, technology transfer, and WHO prequalification.