India has taken a significant step towards strengthening its digital healthcare infrastructure with the launch of its first national drug registry, a centralised digital repository that will serve as a single, verified source of information on medicines available in the country.
Officials said the platform has been developed to improve clinical decision-making, patient safety and interoperability by creating a common digital language for medicines across India's healthcare ecosystem.
At present, the registry contains more than 1.23 lakh branded medicines, over 10,000 generic drugs and more than 29,000 pharmaceutical substances, making it one of the country's largest digital databases of medicines.
A senior Health Ministry official said the registry addresses a long-standing challenge in healthcare delivery where medicines containing the same active ingredient are often documented differently across hospitals and healthcare systems.
"Across India's healthcare ecosystem, medicines are often recorded differently despite containing the same active ingredient.
