As China's FDA Undergoes Regulatory Consolidation, Its Chief Promoter Gets a Name Change

For years, the China Center for Pharmaceutical International Exchange (CCPIE) has been a semi-public institution aimed at helping the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) establish cooperative agreements and relationships with outside entities, particularly outside China.

Going forward, it will continue to do and be just that, only under a different name.

According to the agency's website, CCPIE is now the China Center for Food and Drug International Exchange (CCFDIE), reflecting CFDA's recently-consolidated regulatory powers to regulate food and drugs.

The agency recently underwent a reorganization that saw much of China's food and drug regulatory powers consolidated into the agency, elevating it back to a ministerial-level agency directly under the State Council. Since 2008, the agency had been downgraded to a position of lesser importance after a series of corruption scandals that resulted in the 2007 execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of SFDA, reportedly for taking bribes in return for approving substandard medicines.

In response to these ongoing concerns, the National People's Congress (NPC) of China moved in March 2013 to consolidate power back into a newly endowed SFDA with ministerial-level powers. The change will see it assume control over several food regulatory bodies, though little changes in the way it regulates healthcare products.

Focus was unable to find any official statement on CCFDIE's website, which is still located at ccpie.org.