Li Chuyuan, the chairman of GPHL, delivers a speech at the roundtable.

A roundtable titled ‘Drug Evaluation and Approval System Reform in the New Era’ was held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on the afternoon of March 24 during the 19th China Development Forum (CDF). Representatives of the world’s major producers of pharmaceuticals attended the meeting to share their views on the reform of drug evaluation and approval systems.

At the roundtable, Li Chuyuan, the Chairman of GPHL, made an appeal for the establishment of an evaluation and approval system exclusively for TCM and the formulation of an Orange Book for TCM to standardize its evaluation and approval.

Roundtable: Drug Evaluation and Approval System Reform in the New Era

As the Chairman of GPHL, the largest pharmaceutical enterprise and the largest manufacturer of Chinese patent medicine in China, Li pays a great deal of attention to the reform of TCM evaluation and approval systems.

Li believes that the lack of an evaluation and approval system in line with the characteristics of TCM is one of the major causes of having difficulty getting new traditional Chinese medicine evaluated and approved. Therefore, Li is suggesting a system be established ASAP to solve the problem, which is he believes, also the key to better develop TCM.

Last year, the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) issued a ‘Notice concerning the  Publication of the China Marketed Drugs Catalogue’ (comparable to the ‘Orange Book’ in the United States) and conducted an evaluation of consistency in terms of the quality and efficacy of chemical drugs.

Li is proposing that a similar Orange Book for TCM should also be published, to highlight a number of high quality TCMs which are representative, highly controllable in quality, scientifically innovative, efficacious in clinical application and enjoy a good reputation with consumers. These medicines can serve as reference or standard for the evaluation and approval of other TCMs.

Li Chuyuan, the chairman of GPHL, poses for a photo at the China Development Forum.

Now GPHL owns four major businesses: Grand Southern TCM, Grand Health Care, Grand Commerce and Grand Medical Treatment, and is cultivating three new businesses: e-commerce, capital finance and medical apparatus and instruments. It is concentrating its efforts on seeking high quality development, so as to achieve its next goal—to become a Fortune Global 500 enterprise by 2020.

About CDF

As the first major state-level international conference held after the conclusion of the two sessions, the CDF is being held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing from March 24 to 26.

With the theme of “China in the New Era”, this year’s CDF addresses various topics, including high-quality development, fiscal and tax system reform, supply-side structural reform and financial policies, opening up on all fronts, China’s manufacturing in the high-quality development stage, innovation and future development.

About 80 international delegates from many business circles attended this high-level annual event approved by the State Council and hosted by the Development Research Center of the State Council of China.

(Author: Monica Liu; Editors: Simon Haywood, Olivia Yang)