Kathmandu, February 6

The state-owned Nepal Drugs Ltd (NDL) is all set to begin production of paracetamol from next week.

Robus Kumar Subedi, general manager of NDL, informed that all groundwork has been completed to produce the popular analgesic drug from the coming week.

“Machines and raw materials needed for production of paracetamol have been acquired. However, a few days’ works regarding installing some machinery are left and they will be completed soon,” said Subedi, adding that NDL will begin trial production of paracetamol for a few days before beginning the commercial production of the drug.

Subedi said that NDL has the capacity to produce at least 100,000 tablets of paracetamol per day (roughly 750,000 tablets per week).

After remaining closed for almost seven years, the government had revived NDL last year and the firm had started production of oral rehydration salt from May. After successful production of paracetamol, NDL plans to produce almost 120 types of drugs in the long run.

Currently, NDL has been producing almost 2,500 packets of oral rehydration salt every day.

“We plan to start production of one new drug every month after successfully producing paracetamol,” added Subedi.

Established over four decades ago, NDL was shut down in 2010 after it was unable to maintain the Good Manufacturing Practice, a global manufacturing standard prescribed by the World Health Organisation. However, the Ministry of Industry had initiated a campaign to revive various defunct government industries from fiscal 2016-17.

Subedi also informed that drugs manufactured by NDL will be available at a comparatively cheaper rate so that all people can have easy access to essential drugs.