Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is putting medicine testing on wheels. Five mobile drug screening laboratories will begin operating across the province next week, letting inspectors check the medicines on sale in local markets on the spot instead of waiting days for a laboratory result. Fitted with modern FTIR and Raman spectroscopy equipment, the vans are designed to catch substandard and counterfeit medicines where they are sold — a step officials say will speed up action against sellers of fake drugs.
Five vans to cover the province’s divisions
The vans were inspected on Friday, 6 November, by Nigar Johar Khan, Adviser to the Governor on Health and Population, during a visit to the Directorate General of Drug Control and Pharmacy Services in Peshawar. She toured several sections of the directorate and received a briefing on its regulatory functions, its medicine quality monitoring work and its efforts to ensure the availability of safe medicines.
Officials said the five laboratories will be formally inaugurated at the Governor House on Tuesday, 10 November. After the inauguration, the vans will be deployed across the province’s divisions so that drug inspectors can test medicines in local markets and other locations, rather than relying only on samples sent away to a central laboratory.
The programme has been months in preparation. The Directorate General of Drug Control and Pharmacy Services tendered in December 2025 for the equipment and vehicle fabrication for five mobile drug spot screening and testing laboratories for the financial year 2025-26, specifying portable FTIR and Raman analysers for each van.
What the vans can test on the spot
Each van carries Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Raman technology. Together, the two techniques let inspectors carry out preliminary tests at the point of sale: the equipment examines a medicine’s chemical composition and its ingredients, and checks whether the product matches its prescribed strength.
The mobile test is a first screen, not a final verdict. If preliminary screening flags a product as suspicious or substandard, inspectors collect samples and send them to the Drug Testing Laboratory in Peshawar for detailed analysis and further action. Genuine stock, meanwhile, can be cleared without being pulled from shelves while a distant laboratory works through a queue.
Why testing at the market matters
For patients, the difference is practical. A fake or substandard medicine often looks identical to the genuine product — the same box, the same blister pack, the same branding — and the harm only becomes clear when the treatment does not work, or when it causes harm of its own. Until now, confirming a suspicion has usually meant sending a sample to a laboratory and waiting, during which the rest of the batch can go on being sold.
Bringing the test to the market shortens that gap. Inspectors can screen stock while it is still on the shelf, seize what fails the first check, and send only the suspect samples for full laboratory confirmation. Officials say the aim is to tighten oversight of the pharmaceutical market and improve access to safe, effective medicines for people across the province.
The move also puts the focus on the point of sale. Pharmacies and medicine shops are where patients actually meet the product, and a visible testing van in a market sends a message to sellers as well as buyers: the stock on display can be checked there and then.
What happens next
The formal inauguration at the Governor House on Tuesday, 10 November, is the next milestone. After that, the five vans will fan out across the divisions, and the first results from market screening will show how much suspect stock the new system picks up — and how quickly the Peshawar laboratory can confirm it.
For now, the province’s message to medicine sellers is simple: the testing laboratory is coming to the market. For patients, the advice stays the same — buy medicines from licensed pharmacies and keep the receipt — but from next week, there will be a van in the market able to check what is on the shelf.
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