Kathmandu, February 22

The state-owned Nepal Drugs Limited has completed trial production of paracetamol. It produced 80,000 paracetamol tablets during the trial.

“The tablets will be tested in the laboratory and if everything is fine the company will start commercial production of paracetamol tablets from next week. The company had started trail production of the medicine yesterday,” said Robhash Kusam Subedi, general manager, NDL. Subedi said NDL had the capacity to produce at least 100,000 tablets of paracetamol per day.

After successful production of paracetamol, NDL plans to produce 120 types of essential drugs in the long run. Currently, NDL has been producing 2,500 packets of oral rehydration salt every day.

Established four decades ago, the company had halted production for around eight years after failing to adopt good manufacturing practices set by World Health Organisation. The company resumed operation on May 7, 2017 after it received Rs 146.8 million from the government to procure essential raw materials and upgrade facilities.

NDL started production of oral rehydration salt by upgrading facilities after receiving the first instalment of Rs 64.8 million from the finance ministry. It also plans to produce iron tablets, antibiotics and cough syrups.