Punjab University’s College of Pharmacy is awarded ISO 9001-2008 certification

Lahore: The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), an independent, non-governmental membership organization and the world’s largest developer of voluntary international standards, has certified Punjab University’s College of Pharmacy for authentic analysis of drugs, which has become the first college of any public sector university in Pakistan that achieved this milestone.

The ISO, after strictly examining administrative affairs, research activities, equipment of laboratories and expertise, has awarded ISO 9001-2008 certification to the college.

After this certification, the reports of analysis of drugs sent for inspection to the college’s labs will be considered certified and prepared as per international standards.

Earlier, there were only one lab in Lahore and one lab in Islamabad whose reports were considered reliable and certified and now PUCP’s lab is the third one. For receiving this certificate from ISO officials, a historical ceremony was organized on Monday at the college’s auditorium and Pharmacognosy Lab was also inaugurated on the occasion.

Punjab University Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran, Dean Faculty of Pharmacy and Principal PUCP Prof Dr Mobashir Ahmed Butt, Dean Faculty of Law Prof Dr Shazia Qureshi, ISO’s representative and Head of Sales TUV Austria Atif Hameed, PUCP’s Management Representative for ISO Certification Imran Tariq, senior faculty members and a large number of students were present on the occasion.

Addressing the ceremony, PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran congratulated Dr Mobashir Ahmed Butt for setting a new record and making history by achieving the ISO certification. He said that it was wonderful that PUCP had obtained ISO certification in the first attempt. He said that it was unfortunate that Pakistan was a country of over 200 million people and there were only two such laboratories existing previously. He said that such labs must have been set up at least in all the major cities of the country but it could not happen because we were not paying due attention to science and technology. He said that the United States had a population of 330 million but was ruling 7 billion people of the world only because it was investing in education, creation of new knowledge and defense sectors.

Addressing the ceremony, Dr Shazia Qureshi said that ISO certification was not only an honor for the university and the college but as well as for Pakistan. She said that there was no lack of talent in the country as our engineers, doctors, scientists etc were delivering excellent services in the developed countries but there was lack of strong character among our people and a mindset to develop our own country. She said that we could not become a developed nation until we improve our school education and make concepts of good and evil clear to our children.

PUCP Principal Prof Dr Mobashir Ahmed Butt said that when the use of substandard drugs caused deaths at Punjab Institute of Cardiology and the news created panic among the public, the samples of the drugs were sent abroad for lab analysis. On another occasion, he said, there was a huge difference of statistics between the two reports of our two aforementioned laboratories. “I then thought that there must be a third laboratory which could analyze drugs as per international standards and whose report could be considered authentic. And today, we have made our dream come true and met an important demand of the country. It is an historical moment for the college,” he stated joyously.

He thanked PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran for his support in the project and appreciated the important role of Mr Imran Tariq for obtaining the certification. ISO representative Atif Hameed also congratulated the college’s administration on this achievement. On the occasion, Mr Atif Hameed presented ISO 9001:2008 Certificate to PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran and Dr Mobashir Ahmed Butt. Shields were also distributed among guests, faculty members and research officers. Later, PU VC Dr Mujahid Kamran inaugurated Pharmacognosy Laboratory at the college.