History of Pharmacopoeia in India

The inception of the IP traces back to 1833 when a committee of the East India Company's Dispensary recommended the publication of a pharmacopoeia. Accordingly, the IP 1868 was published covering drugs from the British Pharmacopoeia (BP) 1867 and indigenous drugs used in India. However, after 1885, the BP became officially recognized in India (Indian Pharmacopoeia, 2022).

After India gained independence, the IP Committee was constituted in 1948 under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India with the primary responsibility of publishing the IP. Accordingly, the first edition of IP was published in 1955 by the IP Committee followed by a supplement in 1960. This edition of IP included the Western and traditional system of drugs extensively used in India. The same approach was adopted for the second edition of the IP in 1966 and its subsequent supplement in 1975. However, due to the rapid growth of the Indian pharmaceutical sector at the time, it was decided to issue new editions of IP and its addenda at more frequent and shorter intervals for which the IP Committee was reconstituted in 1978. Consequently, the third edition of the IP was published in 1985 followed by its addenda in 1989 and 1991. The inclusion of the traditional system of drugs was limited in this IP edition; nonetheless, most new drugs manufactured and/or commercialized were covered. Continuing this trajectory, the IP Committee published the fourth edition of IP 1996 followed by its addendum in 2000 along with a supplement for veterinary products and an addendum in 2002.

In 2005, MoHFW established the IPC as an autonomous Institute to publish the IP at regular intervals and to develop reference standards. Thereafter, IPC first published the IP Addendum 2005 which featured many monographs on anti-retroviral pharmaceuticals and herbal plants commonly used in traditional Indian medicines which were not covered by other pharmacopoeias. Thereafter, in 2007 IPC published the fifth edition of the IP encompassing 271 new drug monographs focused on pharmaceuticals recommended in National Health Programmes (NHPs) and the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM). This was followed by the publication of the IP Addendum 2008. The sixth edition of IP was published in 2010 and its Addendum in 2012 featuring monographs on therapeutic categories such as antiretroviral, anticancer, antituberculosis, herbal drugs, human vaccines, and biotechnology-derived drugs. The seventh edition of IP was published in 2014 and its Addenda in 2015 and 2016. The eighth edition of the IP was published in 2018 and was supplemented by subsequent publications of the IP Addenda 2019 and 2021. The currently official ninth edition of the IP was published in 2022 so as to become effective from 1st December, 2022. Concise historical overview of the publication of IP editions is given below.