Report of the Core-Committee for Revision of National List of Essential Medicines November 2015
A Core-Committee was constituted by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MOHFW), Government of India, under the chairmanship of Dr VM Katoch, the then Secretary, Department of Health Research (DHR) and Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and Dr YK Gupta, Professor and Head, Department of Pharmacology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) as the Vice Chairman.
The Core-Committee in its initial meetings deliberated and decided on the criteria for inclusion and deletion of medicines in National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM).
The criteria for inclusion of a medicine in NLEM are as follows:
1. The medicine should be approved/licensed in India
2. The medicine should be useful in a disease, which is a public health problem in India.