Vitamin Standardization and the International Pharmacopoeia

The next international initiative to gain momentum was the creation of the International Conference on Biological Standardization under the auspices of the League of Nations in 1921. USP began sending delegates to the conference in 1925. The goal of the organization was to prepare reference material that would allow national public health authorities to ensure that their biological products were potent. Later, in 1931, an international conference on vitamin standardization was held, during which standards for vitamins A, B1, C, and D were created. The standards were expressed in international units and USP was charged with distributing them within the United States. This effort formed the basis of USP's new Reference Standards program. In 1937, the Technical Commission of Pharmacopoeial Experts was formed under the League of Nations with the primary goal of creating an International Pharmacopoeia, and USP Committee of Revision Chairman, E. Fullerton Cook, was appointed to the commission in 1938.