Founder of Sri Lanka Drug Policy

State Pharmaceuticals Manufacturing Corporation

Professor Senaka Bibile

Professor Senaka Bibile born on 13th February 1920 was a renowned pharmacologist who was hailed as the greatest medical benefactor of humanity that Sri Lanka has hitherto produced.

 

With primary and secondary education at Kandy Trinity College and tertiary education in Medical College in Colombo, Senaka Bibile was showing a promising career by winning the gold medals for medicine and surgery and obtaining a first-class honors degree in 1945. After joining the University of Ceylon in 1947, Senaka Bibile has contributed to valuable researches that had esteem recognition and after a decade or so, he was selected as the first Professor of Pharmacology and appointed to the capacity of the department head.

 

After that, Professor Senaka Bibile was appointed as the first Dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Peradeniya from 1967 to 1977, and essentially become the pioneer of medical education in Sri Lanka by starting the first medical education unit.

 

The Government of 1970 appointed Dr. S.A. Wickremasinghe and Dr. Bibile to lead a commission of inquiry to investigate the issue of branded pharmaceutical drugs. This Bibile - Wickramasinghe Report served as the foundation for establishing an essential drug manufacturing entity owned and operated by the government of Sri Lanka.

 

After Bibile - Wickramasinghe Report, the government embarked on importing essential medicinal drugs as the first phase of the plan. The second phase was manufacturing a number of selected essential drugs within the country. In 1985, the Ministry of Health prepared a proposal for the establishment of a Formulation Centre for Essential Drugs and it was accepted by the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA).

 

As it was recommended to establish a national policy and a state body to regularize the pharmaceutical drugs trade, Sri Lanka State Pharmaceuticals Corporation was founded. In 1971 the Cabinet Minister of Industries, T.B. Subasinghe appointed Professor Bibile as the founder chairman of the Sri Lanka State Pharmaceuticals Corporation.

 

Professor Senaka Bibile passed away on September 29, 1977, in Guyana. The world still treasures his life and work which benefits humankind on a global scale.