Pursuing Global Top Five Food & Drug Ranking

KFDA Commissioner announces 2011 tasks for the Osong Era

President Im Kee-young of the Daewoo Securities Co.

Korea Food & Drug Administration (KFDA) Commissioner Noh Yun-hong said, "The year 2011 will be the first year for making a leap into the worldOs top five food and drug powers, and the KFDA will do the utmost to make public life safer and healthier."
In his New Year's message, KFDA Commissioner Noh disclosed the detailed tasks his agency will carry out during this year, including the advancing of preventive hazards management systems and food safety management and supporting the development of new growth engine industries, the regulatory reform of the KFDA and better communication with the public.
The dawning of the Year of the Rabbit (on the Chinese zodiac) means the first year of an era in which the KFDA will embark on a new future with new possibilities at the new breeding ground of Osong for creating growth engines, he said.
Looking back on last year, Noh said the KFDA provided diverse support toward the creation of an environment in which consumers have confidence and the enhancing of a competitive edge in new growth engine industries. As a result, the KFDA made more than a few achievements including the advancing of food and pharmaceutical safety standards, the establishment of an early warning system of food poisoning and its being selected as an exemplary regulatory reform agency for the third straight year. However, there are still many areas in which the KFDA will have to take more responsibility, he added.
Noh said the KFDA has established the "Hopeful Future 2020" by mustering staff members' capabilities and exchanging views with the outside in order to prepare for the Osong Era and has designated the year 2011 as the first year toward making a leap into the worldOs top five food and drug powers. To this end, he said, the KFDA will do its best to make public life safer and healthier and carry out the top six core tasks in order to achieve policy goals: prevention and ease, fairness and vigor, and communication and cooperation.
First, he said, KFDA will make every effort to upgrade preventive hazards management systems. The agency will improve or introduce safety standards to protect public health and cope with new dangers by establishing a three-year plan on the advancement of food and pharmaceutical safety standards and create health food and pharmaceutical environment circumstances tailored to meet age groups so that people can eat and drink without apprehension.
Second, he said, the KFDA will create a safety net to cover all sections ranging from raw materials to consumption. "We'll build and operate an IT-based e-food safety management system combining various reporting systems while systemizing product collection and examination. Conditions for purchasing safe food products will be improved by expanding an automatic hazardous food suspension system, while taking steps to ensure the safety management of liquors," he said.
Third, he said, the KFDA will proactively provide support to nourish new growth engine industries with a competitive edge. The KFDA will beef up support to develop bio drugs with a competitive edge while proactively arranging licensing and permit standards suiting the characteristics of stem cell treatment drugs. It will also strive to provide support for the development and commercialization of high value-added medical devices and equipment by inaugurating a medical device information technology support center.
Fourth, he said, the KFDA will push regulatory reform of food and pharmaceutical administration to facilitate autonomy and fairness. Regulatory reform will be conducted across the board from scratch to ensure a virtuous circle of safety and competitiveness so that the autonomy of the food and pharmaceutical industries can be expanded. Forty-seven regulatory reform tasks have been set, ensuring that punitive actions and punishments will be readjusted in a rational way so that habitual and intentional food and pharmaceutical law violators can be dealt with more sternly and administrative dispositions and will be reset, according to the extent of harmfulness.
Fifth, he said, the KFDA will ramp up its communication with the general public so as to spread consensus on safety.
Lastly, he called for stepping up cooperative systems to expand the safety foundation. "We'll inaugurate cooperative systems, including R&D, with related government ministries to build food and pharmaceutical safety infrastructure while striving to enact the integration of managing testing and examination institutions to secure their international confidence," he said. The KFDA will take the initiative in building a global food and pharmaceutical network by aggressively participating in joint clinical testing among Korea, China and Japan and through Asia Harmonization Working Party meetings.nw