corruption

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www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-02/09/content_805365.htm

 

Drug review to rid sector of corruption

By Wu Jiao (China Daily)

Updated: 2007-02-09 06:56

Vice-Premier Wu Yi yesterday ordered a thorough review of pharmaceutical

production licenses and certificates amid a widening probe into the scandal

involving the former head of the national food and drug watchdog.

Production licenses for nearly 170,000 medicines will be reviewed under

strict assessment procedures by the end of the year.

In a national video-conference, Wu singled out drugs which were granted

national-level production licenses from 1999 to 2002 as the focus of

inspection.

 

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Wu's action is seen as a major effort to reorganize the disorderly drug

market the legacy of the disgraced former head of the State Food and Drug

Administration (SFDA), Zheng Xiaoyu.

Zheng, 63, is being investigated for taking bribes during his eight years in

office since 1998.

Insiders said there was rampant corruption involving the SFDA after Zheng

introduced the Good Medicine Product (GMP) certificate to replace local

standards.

By 2003, more than 2,000 drug producers had been awarded GMP certificates,

compared with only 87 before 1999.

" It was an open secret that without money, getting a GMP approval or

national production license was impossible, " Business News quoted an unnamed

drug producer as saying.

Besides reviewing GMP approval and production licenses, Wu also ordered that

quality inspectors be dispatched to factories which make key drugs such as

injections, biomedicine and special medicines.

There were a series of injection-related medical accidents last year,

including the Xinfu antibiotic made by Anhui-based Worldbest

Bio-pharmaceutical Co, which claimed 11 lives.

Wu criticized " unscrupulous drug authorities " , and called for strict

administrative and legal penalties to be imposed on corrupt officials and

drug producers.

" Fines alone will not be enough. All those people should face the full force

of the law, " said Wu.

She admitted that the drug supervision system has severe loopholes, ranging

from loose rules which could be changed by some officials to suit their own

interests to lax supervision.

In the past few years, the SFDA handled more than 10,000 applications for

registering new drugs annually, compared with 148 in the United States in

2004.

To clean up the industry, drug supervision authorities revoked the business

licenses of 160 drug manufacturers and retailers in 2006.

Hao Heping, former director of the department of medical equipment in charge

of issuing production licenses, was sentenced to 15 years in November for

corruption.

(China Daily 02/09/2007 page1)