The 59th Indian Pharmaceutical Congress : A Report

Dec 29th, 2006, Varanasi, U.P., INDIA:

The 59th Indian Pharmaceutical Congress was held at Department of Pharmaceutics, BHU (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi from 20th to 23th December 2007 with an aim to disseminate knowledge and facilitate exchange of new ideas among the members of Pharmacy Profession.

Inauguration of the 59th IPC was done on 20th December at 4.30pm. Dr. John L. LaMattina senior vice president, Pfizer Inc and President, Pfizer Global Research and Development was the guest of honour.

Scientific poster sessions were held on 21st and 22nd December from 4.45 – 6.45pm. More than 1700 scientific posters were presented in 3 halls. And about more than 70 plenary lectures were given by eminent speakers from various countries institutes and industrial organizations in 3 halls.

Pharma Expo 2007 was greatly arranged in 3 halls and the equipment placed in that Expo attracted all the delegates who visited 59th IPC.

As a part of entertainment cultural programs were conducted and particularly on 20th December Contemporary Classical Indian Music, World Music by Dr.Krishna Raghavendra, USA and on 21st December Mr.Jagjit Singh performed Ghazals.

The valedictory program was held at 2pm on 23rd December.

About Banaras Hindu University

Pharmaceutical Education in India at the University level was started first in Banaras Hindu University in July 1932 by Prof. M.L. Schroff. The Department has so far produced about 2000 B.Pharm graduates, 1000 M.Pharm post graduates, and 80 scholars. The Department so far has published over 600 research papers in international and 2000 research papers in national journals, which speaks of its contribution to pharmaceutical sciences.
This Department has the distinction of being the birthplace of national level professional bodies namely IPA (1940), APTI (1966) and the Indian Journal of Pharmacy (1939) [presently it is named as Indian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences].
The Department has had the honor of hosting 17th and 34th Session of Indian Pharmaceutical Congress in the year 1965 and 1982 in conjunction with Silver Jubilee and Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Department, respectively. In this year 2007 Department of Pharmaceutics has hosted 59th IPC in conjunction with Platinum Jubilee celebrations of the Department.

About IPCA

Indian Pharmaceutical Congress Association (IPCA) - A federation of five national pharmaceutical associations as its constituents - is the apex body representing Indian Pharmacists working in various capacities, viz. community pharmacists, hospitals pharmacists, in industry (in production, R&D, quality control, quality assurance and marketing), regulatory officials, academicians and other disciplines and areas of work.In all it has 20,000 pharmacists as its members.

The five constituents of IPCA are
•The Indian Pharmaceutical Association - IPA
•The Indian Pharmacy Graduates Association - IPGA
•The Indian Hospital Pharmacists’ Association - IHPA
•The Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India - APTI
•The All India Drugs Control Officer’s Confederation – AIDCOC

Dr. H.P.Tipnis

59th IPC was hosted by APTI (Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India). This year, 59th IPC held at Varanasi has the theme related to the most relevant and fast emerging technological frontier on the global horizon, namely,
'Pharma Vision 2020 - Product, Patient, Practice' with Dr. H.P.Tipnis as the president for IPCA.