China to close over 1,000 medicine firms
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-05-24 16:30

Over 1,000 drug manufacturers across the country will be closed if they fail to pass the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) authentication by July 1, said an official from the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) in Tianjin on Monday.

Shao Mingli, deputy director of the SFDA, made the remarks when delivering a speech at an international forum on medicine administration and research, which was held in North China's Tianjian Municipality on Monday.

As a measure to ensure medicine safety, the SFDA regulated compulsively that all drug enterprises and workshops would have to pass the GMP authentication.

China introduced the GMP authentication, an international standard of medicine production, in 1998 and set its own procedure for authentication in accordance with the real situation of its medicine companies.

From 1999 to 2002, China respectively completed the authentication among the producers of all blood products, injections and powder injections, and those who failed to pass the GMP authentication had been closed down.

By the end of this April, more than 3,000 authentication certificates had been granted to 2,721 out of 5,082 drug manufacturers with the rest demanded to pass the GMP authentication before July 1 or to be closed.