Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia.   TGA Adopts Risk-Based Model for Fecal Microbiota Transplants   Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has adopted a risk-based approach to the regulation of fecal microbiota transplants (FMT). TGA decided to treat FMT products as anything from Class 1 biologicals to Class 4 medicines after running a public consultation earlier in the year.   The model...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia.   Australia Aligns Sartan Rules to EMA as Singapore Finds NDMA in Ranitidine Drugs   Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has aligned its requirements for sartan medicines with those adopted in Europe. The action coincided with news from Singapore about the presence of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), one of the key sartan impurities, in GlaxoSmithKline’s Z...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia.   TGA Seeks Feedback on Planned Changes to Medical Device Rules   Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is seeking feedback on two sets of medical device proposals. The proposals address essential principles for safety and performance and the regulatory requirements for medical device systems and procedure packs.   Both documents grew out of the Austra...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia.   TGA Seeks Feedback on Plan to List Excipients in Drug Products Online   Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is seeking feedback on plans to list the excipients in medicines online. TGA is considering enforcing the change to give consumers access to information about the products they consume.   Today, the public version of the Australian Register f...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia.   China Changes Stance on Fake Drugs and Online Sales in Legal Update   China has passed changes to the drug administration law. The revised law, which will come into force at the start of December, requires online sellers of drugs to comply with certain rules and increases the maximum fine for organizations that make and market counterfeit medicines.   The Nationa...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia.   India Seeks Feedback on Mandatory use of QR Codes on API Packaging   India is planning to require manufacturers to feature quick response (QR) codes on the packaging of locally made and imported active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). The Indian government plans to implement the system at the start of April.   Through an amendment to the Drugs and Cosmetics Rule...

As the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explores plans to lower the cost of pharmaceuticals with imports from Canada and elsewhere, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is calling on the agency to perform more unannounced inspections of foreign facilities. Thanks to recent media coverage (on  China and tainted blood pressure medicines  and another article on  generic drug manufacturing ) as well as a controversial new book on the US reliance on foreign-made generic medicin...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia. China Expands Medical Device Registration Pilot to Cover Multiple Regions   China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has expanded a medical device registration pilot project. The pilot project, which began in a free trade zone, will now cover 21 provinces to help NMPA accrue more experience of the medical device registration system.   NMPA is running ...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia.   TGA Reveals Recently Passed Order Faced Strong Industry Opposition   Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has revealed that parts of the medicines industry objected strongly to its recently adopted standard for tablets and capsules. The legislation came into effect in March despite big pharma trade group Medicines Australia arguing that, “It is unclear ...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued draft guidance on Thursday to implement uniform processes and standards for FDA inspections of domestic and foreign medical device establishments. FDA has updated processes and standards for uniformity within and across inspections other than for-cause and to establish a standard timeframe for such inspections of device establishments. The uniformity in FDA investigators’ approaches to these inspections “may inform firms’...

Industry experts raised questions around the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recent proposal that would allow FDA to inspect manufacturing facilities prior to granting de novo classification requests. The proposal is part of the 76-page proposed rule FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) set forth last December. The proposed rule addresses the lack of de novo-specific regulation that puts the program at a disadvantage compared to the traditiona...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently warned two drugmakers, Phoenix-based Vasco Rx and Commerce, CA-based Samson Pharmaceuticals, for good manufacturing practice violations at their facilities.   Vasco Rx   FDA’s warning letter to Vasco Rx comes after the agency inspected the company’s manufacturing site in March and April 2018.   At the end of the inspection in April, Vasco Rx stopped production and later voluntarily recalled all sterile drugs pr...