Drugs, Diagnostics & Therapies

Chairs

Dr. Maharshi Trivedi

Haresh Gupta

Chief Program Officer

CanKids KidsCan, New Delhi

Goal Statement

To improve uninterrupted access to quality-assured essential anticancer medicines and diagnostics for children with cancer in India through evidence generation, advocacy, and system strengthening.

Key Focus Areas

Mapping and analysis of essential medicines lists (National & State) for childhood cancer.
Establishing a pediatric-focused national pharmacovigilance network.
Policy engagement to improve drug and diagnostic accessibility.
Capacity building in drug safety monitoring.

Glimpses of Work

There is currently no systematic comparison of India’s essential medicines lists with the WHO Essential Medicines List for Children (2023), limiting access to essential medicines for pediatric oncology nationwide.

Highlights

Analysis completed at National and State level.
Poster presented at St. Jude Global Convening, Memphis — December 2024.
WHO EMLc adoption:
- 75% in National EML.
- 49% median across States (range 5–82%).
Rajasthan & Odisha show higher adoption than national level.

Next Steps

Manuscript Submitted
Policy engagement with state & national authorities to include missing medicines

Substandard or falsified medicines contribute to therapeutic failure and increased mortality. A pediatric-specific pharmacovigilance network will strengthen drug safety in cancer treatment.

Current Activities:
- Background research completed.
- NCC–PvPI training proposal developed.
Drug safety alerts for childhood cancer medicines in India from CDSCO (2021-2025) and PVPi notifications (2016-2025).
Initial coordination to collect reporting data for:
- 44 WHO EMLc drugs.
- Medicines used in six tracer cancers (GICC initiative).

Next Steps

Engaging with NCC-IPC.
Presenting Analysis of Drug safety alerts at PHOCCON 2025.

Creating Rational use of Pediatric cancer drugs for PVPi.
Compilation of National Medical Device List — Childhood Cancers.
Educational webinars on pharmacovigilance.

State

Sector

Cancer Service