New Delhi: A high-level interministerial panel has recommended regulation of health supplements such as vitamins, minerals, prebiotic and probiotic formulations in dosage strength as pharmaceutical products in order to ensure better due diligence before their approval, and to control production quality and price. The panel has also suggested that while the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) may continue to regulate nutritional and health claims made by nutraceuticals, their claim to cure or mitigate any specific disease, disorder or condition including disease risk reduction should be regulated by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO). The eight-member committee, constituted in January this year and headed by former Union health secretary Apurva Chandra, submitted its report to the government this month.
ThePrint has accessed a copy of the report. According to the report, the panel had been tasked to review the regulatory purview of nutraceuticals on account of overlapping issues of nutraceuticals with drugs. “This was considered necessary because of the challenges in uniform implementation and enforcement, interchangeable usage of the same nutrient or ingredient at different doses for pharma and nutraceuticals use and overlap in prophylactic & therapeutic usage along with disease risk reduction claims,” the report says.
Nutraceuticals include products with bioactive substances, and herbs and minerals or those dietary supplements which .
