Did you know?

ChinaBio® Group is a consulting and advisory firm helping life science companies and investors achieve success in China. ChinaBio works with U.S., European and APAC companies and investors seeking partnerships, acquisitions, novel technologies and funding in China.  

Learn more >>

Free Newsletter

Have the latest stories on China's life science industry delivered to your inbox daily or weekly - free!

  Email address:
   

The Week in Review: China Steps Up Narcotics Monitoring

publication date: Aug 31, 2007
 | 
author/source: Richard Daverman, PhD

China will begin a real-time monitoring of narcotics and first-grade psychopharmacy, according to the Office of the State Council Leading Group on Product Quality and Food Safety. Narcotics and first-grade psychopharmacy drugs will be tracked through the entire manufacturing, selling and storing process.

The new offensive is not a direct attack on the food and drug safety problems that have dominated headlines this year. Still, it represents another step forward in China’s attempt to control its highly dispersed pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution system.

China will have the real-time monitoring system in place by the end of 2007.

At the same time, regulators will send inspectors to observe the manufacturing and prescribing of large-volume injections. These inspectors will monitor pharmaceutical manufacturers to make sure that GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) are in place. This increased supervision is a direct response to China’s food and safety difficulties, and shows China as moving forward on several fronts to insure its drugs are safe.

Along the same lines, earlier this week, the Vice-Premier of China, Wu Yi, announced a special four-month attack on the quality and safety issues that have cropped up in its exported products (see story). Exports have spurred the economic renaissance of China, so the country can not afford to appear unconcerned about their reputation.

In drug development in China last week, Asperva (ASPV) will pay Roche (RHHBY) to carry out trials in China on CellCept as a treatment for lupus nephritis (see story). The move made sense because CellCept was originally a Roche drug, and Roche is well-established in China.

Nexavar, a cancer drug from Bayer (BAY) and Onyx (ONXX), was so successful in treating Asia-Pacific patients with liver cancer that the trial was stopped early. Asian regulators had asked for a special trial in local populations to prove the drug was effective in the Asia-Pacific genotype (see story).

Phillips, the Dutch medical device giant, announced it will build a research lab in Shanghai, collaborating with a division of the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences. Together, they will seek to discover biomarkers and new in vitro diagnostic tests (see story).

Summit Lifesciences, a biotech developing medical materials to treat damaged tissue or organs, received international recognition when Red Herring magazine named the Guangzhou company to its Hot Asia 100 list. Summit has had a neurosurgery product on the market since last June (see story).

And finally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development gave China high marks for its strides toward becoming a market-driven economy. At the same time, the organization made a few suggestions to China that would help the country to develop a truly innovation-centered economy, its stated goal (see story).

Disclosure: none.


 

Share this with colleagues:

 

ChinaBio® News

Greg Scott BIO-Europe Interview
Greg Scott Interviewed at BIO-Europe Spring

How to bring your China assets to China in 8 minutes


Greg Scott Mendelspod Interview
"Mr. Bio in China."
Mendelspod Interview

Multinational pharma held to a higher standard in China

Partner Event
November 2-3, 2023 | Shanghai
November 7-8, 2023 | Digital