The Research Program on Africa Pharmacopeia

Background and Purposes

Subject to fragile health systems, Africa has long lacked access to available services and medicines. That means it must increase its R&D input, ramp up its medical supply and improve pharmaceutical quality systems if it is to reduce dependence on imported medical products. A pharmacopoeia represents a legally-binding collection, prepared by a national or regional authority, of standards and quality specifications for essential medicines. It aims to deal with salient quality and safety issues in a scientific, advanced and rigorous manner.

As international pharmacopoeial standards don’t perfectly fit in local realities, local pharmacopoeial standards are desperately needed. After several revisions, Chinese Pharmacopeia, specifying the quality of ten hundreds types of essential medicines, has been introduced to meet the international standards. Furthermore, standards on traditional Chinese medincine(TCM) set an important precedent for the identification of herbal materials, standard setting and clinical applications in Africa. 

Supported by the Pharmaceutical Study Center jointly built by SJTU School of Pharmacy (SoP) and African universities, this Program engages students in research activities, including how to analyze and specify local medicines, which provides Chinese solutions to developing Africa Pharmacopeia. 

Aligned with local demand for pharmaceutical research, this Program serves to improve the quality of local medicines and prescribing practices to achieve the sustainable development of Africa. Besides, it creates a golden opportunity for students to develop global vision and foster global competence. 

General Outline

Initiated by Professor Fu Lei from SoP at SJTU, this Program engages students in research activities at AAU to develop an African pharmacopeia, including how to assess and specify essential medicines and to produce a pharmacopeia in a well-structured manner. 

The pharmacopoeial standards routinely  specify established drug names, , source, properties, identification, impurities detection, testing of drug activtity ad potency, category, strength, specification, storage, and preparations. Led by their supervisors, students will engage in the selection, ingredient standardization, content determination, and quality control analysis of African herbal medicines based on African pharmacopoeial standards.

Management Guidelines 

In partnership with AAU, the 4-week program will be launched in December 2018 under the supervision of professors and managers from SoP at SJTU. 

A group of Chinese graduate students, PhD students and international students are engaged in this program under the leadership of managers. The agenda and working arrangements of the Program will be introduced by Chinese professors and researchers at CDT pharmaceutical research laboratory in their weekly reports. A final report and sample analysis data will be submitted at the end of the Program.