In a renewed effort to ensure drug safety and salvage its
credibility, China's drug watchdog announced revised methods for
drug registration and approval yesterday.
It vows to work for a more efficient and scientific system for
drug registration, a healthy market order, and enhanced supervision
of drug production.
According to Wu Zhen, deputy director of the State Food and Drug
Administration (SFDA), the entire process for drug registration and
approval will allow no opportunity for under-the-table deals. It
will be open to public scrutiny.
To prevent the highly centralized power in drug approvals, that
usually breeds corruption, a collective accountability system will
also be in place.
A significant step toward plugging loopholes in drug
registration at its very source, the move, together with the
execution of SFDA's former head Zheng Xiaoyu on Tuesday, crowns the
administration's on-going anti-corruption drive.
Zheng and his subordinate Cao Wenzhuang, the country's former
drug registration head, are among a number of SFDA officials that
have been ferreted out since the end of last year for taking bribes
and dereliction of duty.
The officials had turned the country's medicine approval system
into a money-making machine in the past few years in collaboration
with pharmaceutical companies with disregard to their official
duties and people's health.
They bent rules by giving the green light to the production of
shoddy medicines that would have otherwise failed tests.
The malpractice cost dozens of lives last year. Public
confidence in the national drug body also plunged.
Investigations into these scandals also brought to the surface
some deep-rooted problems in the sector including random
duplication of medicines and violations of production
procedures.
Since then, the SFDA has taken a series of tough measures to
crack down on corruption among its ranks and regulate the behavior
of its staff.
As part of the national crusade on restoring public confidence
in the entire sector, the newly promulgated measures hopefully
serve to eliminate corruption and malpractice at the very root.
(China Daily July 12, 2007)