History
MENJONG SORIGÂ PHARMACEUTICALSÂ was then functioning as Pharmacy unit as a cottage manufacturing facility after the establishment of Hospital in Kawangjangsa, Thimphu in 1978. The Pharmacy unit for Traditional Medicines was established in 1982 through World Health Organization funding in procuring basic manufacturing equipments such as first grinding machine, rotary tablet press, coating pan mixer and sieving machines, oven. During those days, the manufacturing of traditional medicines was run by Menpa until the recruitment of first batch of four Pharmacy Technicians. In 1988, the National Institute of Traditional Medicines then received an Italian Non-Governmental Organization assistance called DISVI Project to assist in the development of Traditional Medicine Sector. The DISVI Project then recruited Four Pharmacy Technician and Five Research assistants in 1989 and trained them two years and three and half years respectively by the Project consultants, after the construction of a small laboratory to provide basic laboratory services for Traditional medicines.
The Pharmacy unit was run by an Ayurvedic Doctor assisted by four Pharmacy technicians. During those days, the unit manufactured the most common dosage forms such as tablet, pills, powder, and ointment. The manufacturing of traditional medicines was then carried out in one storied five compartments traditional building. However, Quality control service was not available at that time since the laboratory was mainly focused on basic things like standardization of Sowa Rigpa nomenclatures of medicinal plants used in traditional medicines since so many discrepancies existed among different Traditional Physicians which was attributed to their different teachers who provided their identifications besides botanical identifications of medicinal plants.
Consultants were hired by the project in different fields like Chemistry, Botany, Pharmacology and Taxonomy who set up laboratory services in their respective fields and trained five Research Assistants.
In 1994, The Traditional Medicines received European Union Project assistance called Medicinal Plants Projects phase I and II. Through the projects assistance, the present modern manufacturing and laboratory facilities was established in 1998 and procured conventional pharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and the laboratory instruments. Since then actual transformation and evolution in manufacturing of traditional medicines had taken place both in terms of technology and infrastructure. It has come a long way since 1968 when traditional medicines was started at Dechenchholing and manufactured manually without proper manufacturing facilities. The Pharmacy unit was then renamed as Pharmaceutical & Research Unit (PRU) with basic laboratory services such as quality control and Research & development to ensure safe, effective and quality production of traditional medicines.
PRU was renamed as Menjong Sorig Pharmaceuticals and was functioning directly under the Department of Traditional Medicine Services, Ministry of Health until it’s corporatization in January 2017. Menjong Sorig Pharmaceutical Corporation Limited (MSPCL) now comprises of Corporate service Department, Production & Engineering Department and Quality Assurance & Research Department.