Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient

WHY IN NEWS?

India is planning to lift the export restriction placed on the export Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) of paracetamol.  About 40% of the paracetamol API manufactured in the country is consumed in the domestic market, while the rest is meant for exports.

ABOUT API

• Every medicine is made up of two main ingredients — the chemically active APIs and chemically inactive, excipients, which is a substance that delivers the effect of APIs to one’s system.
• API is a chemical compound that is the most important raw material to produce a finished medicine.
• In medicine, API produces the intended effects to cure the disease.
• Fixed-dose combination drugs use multiple APIs while single-dose drugs use just one API.
• API is not made by only one reaction from the raw materials but rather it becomes an API via several chemical compounds. The chemical compound which is in the process of becoming an API from raw material is called an intermediate.
• The long manufacturing process is continued until it is purified and reaches a very high degree of purity.