Pharmacopeia – An Introduction
                     Pharmacopeia – An Introduction
Lavy Johnson
Writer at current-trends-now.com, 
creates content for 
latest consumer and business trends.
Pharmacopeia – The word may sound like an alien to many at first instance, but it is 
related to everyone’s day-to-day life. Created from two Greek words: pharmakon 
meaning medicine and poiein to prepare; Pharmacopeia essentially translates to 
‘process of making medicine’.
It can be best described as a formal publication of approved pharmaceutical 
standards that contain the list of all medicinal drugs with their uses, preparation, 
dosages, formulas, and usage effects published by an authority like a country or a 
global body. Technically, it consists of a series of monographs, which are 
descriptions of chemical information, preparation, and function of each drug 
ingredient manufactured or marketed in a country.
Every year countries around the world add new sets of established drug 
formulations to their Pharmacopeias with more and more advancement in medical 
science and research. This not only has been enhancing the healthcare sector but 
also the wellness industry. Pharmacopeias are not only limited exclusively to 
medical drugs but a whole lot of formulations that are on the borderline of 
cosmetics.
Why? Because over the years there has been a significant change in consumer 
behavior concerning health and wellness products, unleashing the creation of a huge 
health-conscious consumer segment. This is giving rise to the age of 
cosmeceuticals, and their growing importance in the space of pharmacy. 
cosmeceuticals, a more marketing term is used for products having cosmetical value 
with ingredients mentioned in the monograph of Pharmacopoeia, classified as a 
drug.
Importance of Pharmacopoeia:
Pharmacopoeia is a vital component of drugs and cosmetics safety systems and an 
instrument for the protection of patients and consumers. The primary purpose of 
pharmacopeia is to help ensure these medicines and their constituents are safe, 
effective, and of fitting quality.
Role & Functions of Pharmacopoeia:
Pharmacopoeia helps furnish quality specifications for ingredients and their general 
requirements for applications. The prevalence of such specifications is of utmost 
importance for proper functioning or regulatory control of the cosmetics sector. 
Pharmacopoeial standards form the base to establish quality requirements for 
preparations of individual pharmaceutical formulas in their final form used in 
cosmetics and beauty products. The utility of pharmacopeia can be considered at 
two levels. At the national level, it promotes the improvement of products and helps 
eliminates those substances that do not obey the limits of the standards. At the 
global level, pharmacopeia ensures that countries that have to import pharma 
products obtain substances of a certain quality that can be controlled based on the 
standards.
List of pharmacopoeias:
At present around 140 independent countries refer to 30 large and small national 
and 3 large – African, European, and International- pharmacopeias. As many as 60 
active pharmacopeia commissions carry out the work of developing and 
maintaining these compilations.
Global Perspective:
At the global level of the Pharma regulatory field, International Pharmacopoeia 
issued by the World Health Organization strives to achieve wide global uniformity 
of quality specifications in pharmaceuticals. But the most popular publication of the 
list of medicinal drugs followed worldwide is the American Pharmacopoeia 
standard. Called the United States Pharmacopoeia, or simply USP, not only has the 
most expansive focus on the pharmaceutical industry worldwide but also has a 
prominent role in setting standards for the cosmetics and personal care industry. It 
has remained a practitioner-based, non-governmental standards-setting organization 
unlike any of its other global counterparts.
Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP):
Consumers must have come across the word ‘IP’ printed on medicines as well as 
some cosmetics products. Well, it is Indian Pharmacopoeia, the official record book 
of standards under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 and Rules 1945, containing 
all manuals of medicines manufactured and marketed in India. Interestingly, the 
first IP standard list was published in 1946. It is now a mandatory suffix used in all 
non-proprietary drug names of products in the Indian subcontinent. Indian 
Pharmacopoeia is published and maintained by the Indian Pharmacopoeia 
Commission on behalf of the Union Health Ministry. The set of standards published 
under the title Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP) historically follows from the British 
Pharmacopoeia.
About Current-trends-now.com
Current-trends-now.com insightful write-ups on latest consumer and business 
trends help business managers to capitalize new opportunities and to succeed. 
Similarly, they help individuals to live smartly and to keep themselves updated 
on the current trends. We monitor current trends and developments across 
various fields including Business,   Health, Home, Recreation, Science and 
Society etc. For more details on the categories, visit http://current-trends-
now.com/.
           
          Thank you for spending your precious time in reading this article.