CHINA HEALTH SCIENCES NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3 , No.23 - September 19, 2002
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- Drug Regulation Updated
- Biotech a Tonic for Growth of Traditional Medicines
- High-tech to be Highlighted at Trade Fair
- China-made AIDS Drug on Sale
- U.S. Hospital Trains Chinese Doctors
- Breast Cancer Campaign Kicks Off
- Tianjin Begins Building Biotech Industrial Park
Drug Regulation Updated
According to the Shanghai Drug Administration Bureau, the newly introduced national drug management regulation (the Regulation) will decentralize the pharmaceutical industry, impose clinical trials on drugs that have never been sold in China before, and increase penalties on those selling illegal medical products.
Prior to the Regulation, any drug being manufactured in China for the first time had to undergo clinic trials, however drugs not made in China could be imported into the country without similar trials. The Regulation now ensures all drugs new to China, whether produced in China or imported, are to be clinically tested.
The Regulations are also designed to help develop the domestic pharmaceutical industry by changing the patent laws relating to drugs so as to bring them into line with international standards. Prior to implementing the Regulation, when a new drug first entered China its manufacturer could apply for patent protection from 4 to 12 years, even if the drugs 20-year international patent had already expired. Pursuant to the Regulation, once a product's 20-year patent expires it will receive no extra patent protection in China.
To enable better supervision of the drug industry, the central government will allow provincial authorities to approve the production and sale of most pharmaceutical products. However, Blood products, biological products, radioactive drugs and anesthetics will still be controlled solely by national authorities.
(Source: eastday.com)
Biotech a Tonic for Growth of Traditional Medicines
China's pharmaceutical sector needs to combine promising biotechnology with traditional Chinese medicine to create new drugs and obtain their intellectual property rights (IPR), officials and scientists said at a forum looking at China's pharmaceutical future, recently held in Shanghai's Zhangjiang High-Tech Park.
Hui Yongzheng, director of the Shanghai Chinese Medicine Research Center and former vice-minister of science and technology, said biotechnology, extensively used in the pharmaceutical industry and medical diagnosis, can also modernize and industrialize traditional Chinese medicine.
According to Hui, biotechnology-related medical products had an approximate global sales value of US $500 billion annually over the past few years.
"It has been a global tendency of replacing chemical medicine products with biotech and natural drugs," Hui said.
The composition of traditional Chinese medicines, made mainly from natural herbs, can be ascertained by modern biotechnology.
(Source: China Daily)
High-tech to be Highlighted at Trade Fair
New and high technology projects constitute a major part of the sixth China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT), which recently began in the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen.
Through its reputation as a major national trade promotion event, the fair has attracted a number of delegations with high-tech projects seeking economic co-operation. These projects cover electronic information, new material and energy, pharmaceutical and bioengineering, environmental protection and modern agriculture.
"In an era when all nations stress technological innovation and advancement, China must give priority to its technological development to cope with challenges following its entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO)," said Yang Junmiao, deputy director of the China Technological Exchange Center under the Ministry of Science and Technology.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
China-made AIDS Drug on Sale
Kedu, the first China-made drug for treating AIDS, has gone on sale in tablet and capsule forms across China.
Kedu, produced by Northeast China Pharmaceuticals Group Company, is a legal reproduction of AZT, the anti-AIDS drug licensed by the United States Food and Drug Administration. The patent protection period of AZT in China expired at the end of last year.
Kedu obtained a permit for domestic marketing from the State Drug Administration in early August. It put an end to the country's total reliance on imported AIDS medicines. According to Zeng Yi, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the number of AIDS patients and HIV carriers in China is 850,000.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
U.S. Hospital Trains Chinese Doctors
Chaoyang Hospital (Beijing), one of China's finest, with the assistance of visiting physicians from Johns Hopkins, is at the forefront of a concerted effort to modernize China's medical system.
The task is daunting. Patients routinely encounter doctors who, by Western standards, lack sufficient training and enter hospitals operating with little financial support from the government. Patients usually must pay before doctors will see them, yet they face the risk of inadequate treatment with unnecessary medicines.
Hopkins' program at Chaoyang, which started this year and will continue at least until 2005, is focusing on some of China's most critical health issues: the training of doctors and quality of care.
The problems faced in undertaking such a modernization can be exemplified by medical practitioners in rural China beginning to practice medicine as teenagers, with little formal education beyond middle school. While in major cities, physicians typically start in their early 20s after four to five years of medical school but without garnering experience through formal residencies and interaction with patients.
Hopkins is sending emergency room doctors - usually one at a time - to train Chinese physicians at Chaoyang, a 1,000-bed facility with 1,000 doctors and nurses. Chaoyang, expected to be the flagship hospital for the 2008 Summer Olympics, has the busiest emergency room in Beijing, with 90,000 patients a year (Hopkins' emergency department treated 50,000 in 2001).
Each Hopkins doctor will stay at the hospital for at least a month to lecture, advise physicians informally and help establish formal training programs intended as models for other hospitals in China.
Officials say it is the first formal post-graduate medical training in the country. Next year, Chaoyang plans to begin China's first residency program in emergency medicine. Hopkins staff members also are expected to train their Chinese counterparts in hospital administration and nursing.
(Source: The Myrtle Beach Sun-News)
Breast Cancer Campaign Kicks Off
Health officials and experts at a public campaign for breast cancer prevention in Shanghai's Xujiahui Park called for the public to pay more attention to the prevention of breast cancer, which has become a major threat to women's well-being, causing disfigurement and even death.
"Governmental departments and various social organizations should make greater efforts to increase public awareness of the increasing prevalence of breast cancer and of methods of detection and prevention," said Ms. Yan Junqi, vice-mayor of Shanghai.
It is vital for women to have a regular examination of their breasts, because treatment is much more successful if cancer is caught in its early stage, suggested experts offering free examinations at the park. Official statistics shows that breast cancer now has the highest incidence rate of all forms of cancer in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and other big Chinese cities, and the average age of the afflicted is falling.
In Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin, the incidence rate of breast cancer is currently 26.5, 25.4, and 24.6 per 100,000, respectively. The incidence rate of the cancer in China has increased 51% in the past 25 years, experts noted.
More oily foods, a greater indulgence in night life and ignorance of the necessity of regular health exams are regarded as some of the reasons for the increase of illness, especially in urban areas, which generally have higher incidence rates for breast cancer than rural areas, according to Xu Yuxiu, a cancer expert from the No 1 Affiliated Hospital of Beijing University.
(Source: China Daily)
Tianjin Begins Building Biotech Industrial Park
Construction of a biotechnology pharmaceutical park recently began in the Northern Chinese port city of Tianjin. With investment from a local and U.S. pharmaceutical company, the park will develop and manufacture interferon, which is a protein produced by cells that have been invaded by a virus.
Located in the Tianjin Development Zone, the park, known as Hualida Biotech Park, occupies 7.2 hectares with a building space of 30,000 square meters.
The whole project is expected to cost RMB 250 million (US $30 million). Completion and operation of the park is expected in October of next year.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
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