Ensuring everyone has equal and fair access to drugs and medicine is the primary concern of any government. But the right to manufacture and sell drugs and medicines has to be given cautiously. Hence the government has stringent rules for granting licenses for the manufacturing and selling of drugs and medicine. The Act that governs the end to end process from manufacture to the sale of drugs in India is the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
Section 3(b) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act,1940 defines “drug” to include all medicines and devices for the use of human beings or animals internally or externally, and all substances planned to be used for or in the diagnosis, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of any disorder or disease in animals or human beings, including preparations applied on the human body for the purpose of repelling insects like mosquitoes; it also includes all substances that can be used for the destruction of insects and all components of a drug – like empty gelatin capsules. The definition was amended in 1964, to include Ayurvedic and Unani Drugs.