Saturday, August 25, 2012

FDA Looking to Overhaul Compliance Approach



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An article published in Regulatory Focus gives FDA's latest thinking on the relationship between Compliance and Quality.

In a presentation to the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society's (RAPS) San Francisco membership chapter on 27 July 2012, Roh, regional food and drug director for FDA's Pacific Region, said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is heading towards a significant change in compliance policy in the coming years. This is a result of rapidly surging imports of pharmaceutical, medical device and biologics products. Under the new system, stand-alone compliance issues would become secondary in importance to quality systems put in place by companies.

The rate at which products were being imported from overseas manufacturing facilities was fast outstripping FDA's ability to effectively exercise oversight. Some of the largest US trading partners are projected to experience enormous growth trends in imports, Roh said in his presentation. China in particular is expected to experience a 426% growth in exports by 2020, while India (+465%) and Mexico (+159%) are projected to exhibit similar percentage increases, though on a smaller overall scale. This could have huge ramifications for the US, which already imports approximately 10% of all products regulated by FDA. The US is expected to see growth rates between 5% and 8% during most years, with estimations going as high as 15% during some years.

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