Nepal Drugs Limited (NDL) has resumed production of paracetamol from Monday. The government-owned pharmaceutical company, that remained closed since 2010, had resumed its operation with the production of jeewan-jal, the most well known brand of oral rehydration salts (ORS), last year.
"NDL had aimed to produce paracetamol last September. However, it took some additional time as the machine arrived here late," General Manager of NDL Dr Robhas Kushum Subedi said.
The company, that has capacity of producing 80 million units of paracetamol tablets annually, is starting commercial production of paracetamol from Monday. It will start producing some 80,000 units of tablets in its first phase of testing although it was said to produce around 320,000 units of tablets in one batch. A tablet produced by the NDL is said to cost Rs 1.
"Commercial production of cetamol is beginning from today," he said, "But we will not send the products to the markets until we produce 1,000,000 unit tablets."
According to Subedi, the NDL will not send paracetamol to the markets until it produces around 1,000,000 units of tablets as the first batch will not be able to meet the required demands.
The government last year had decided to provide Rs 146,400,000 in loan for operation of the company. The general manager was picked through open competition after the then industry minister Nabindra Raj Joshi provided the loan to NDL. Subedi, on being elected as GM, had committed to produce around 48 types of drugs within two to four years.
The NDL has been producing orange flavored ORS targeting the children.
The company has also installed 27 more quality testing equipment as per the new technology to produce drugs as per the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Certification.
NDL was established in 2029 BS with an aim of producing drugs at the government level under the Company Act 2021. The company had produced some 120 types of drugs before its shutdown.
