Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) is the official drug

Drug

A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...

 administration agency of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. The IPC sets standards for all drugs that are manufactured, sold and consumed in India. The set of standards are published under the title Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP) which has been modelled over and historically follows from the British Pharmacopoeia

British Pharmacopoeia

The British Pharmacopoeia is an annual published collection of quality standards for UK medicinal substances. It is used by individuals and organizations involved in pharmaceutical research, development, manufacture and testing....

. The standards that are in effect since December 1, 2010, is the Indian Pharmacopoeia 2010 (IP 2010).

I.P., the abbreviation of 'Indian Pharmacopoeia' is familiar to the consumers in the Indian sub-continent as a mandatory drug name suffix. Drugs manufactured in India have to be labelled with the mandatory non-proprietary drug name with the suffix I.P. This is similar to the B.P. suffix for British Pharmacopoeia

British Pharmacopoeia

The British Pharmacopoeia is an annual published collection of quality standards for UK medicinal substances. It is used by individuals and organizations involved in pharmaceutical research, development, manufacture and testing....

 and the U.S.P. suffix for the United States Pharmacopeia

United States Pharmacopeia

The United States Pharmacopeia is the official pharmacopeia of the United States, published dually with the National Formulary as the USP-NF. The United States Pharmacopeial Convention is the nonprofit organization that owns the trademark and copyright to the USP-NF and publishes it every year...

.

The IPC was formed according to the Indian Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940 and established by executive orders of the Government of India in 1945.

Pharmacopoeia - History of publication

The actual process of publishing the first Pharmacopoeia started in the year 1944 under the chairmanship of Col. R. N. Chopra. The I. P. list was first published in the year 1946 and was put forth for approval. The titles are suffixed with the respective years of publication, eg. IP 1996.

• 1st edition I. P. 1955 was published in the official gazette. Dr. B. N. Ghosh, Chairman
  • Supplement 1960
• 2nd edition I. P. 1966 Dr. B. Mukherji, Chairman
  • Supplement 1975
• 3rd edition I. P. 1985 Dr. Nityanand, Chairman
  • I Addendum/Supplement 1989
  • II Addendum/Supplement 1991
• 4th edition I. P. 1996 Dr. Nityanand, Chairman
  • Addendum/ Supplement 2000
  • Addendum/ Supplement 2002
• 5th edition I. P. 2007 Dr. Nityanand, Chairman
• 6th edition I. P. 2010