Strengthening partnerships: FDAs China office engages in key outreach with Chinese provincial FDA academia and industry

By: S. Leigh Verbois, Ph.D.

独木不成林,单弦不成音

Dú mù bù chéng lín, dān xián bù chéng yīn

‘A single tree makes no forest, one string makes no music.’

“A single tree makes no forest, one string makes no music.” This old Chinese proverb inspired FDA’s China Office, as members of our staff embarked on a five-day trip to meet with provincial FDA regulators, industry, and academia in China’s Yangtze River Delta region.

The Yangtze River Delta region is an economic area that encompasses the Shanghai municipality, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. The commercial epicenter, which accounts for 20 percent of China’s gross domestic product, is home to a significant number of FDA-regulated medical product manufacturers.

We traveled more than 3,300 kilometers (1,980 miles) to meet with key leaders and experts to strengthen partnerships, share information, and build the foundation for future cooperative engagement. Our first stop was Shanghai, where I had the great fortune to be able to address hundreds of students and faculty at East China University of Science and Technology’s School of Pharmacy and China Pharmaceutical University.

My message to the students was that they are the future leaders who will be in charge of the next generation of pharmaceutical innovation and data integrity.

In Shanghai, we also had the opportunity to sit down with U.S. Embassy Consul General Hanscom Smith to compare notes and to talk about current FDA priorities underway in the region.

The team then rode a high speed bullet train to Nanjing Province to meet with Jiangsu FDA, the regional regulator. This type of information sharing between the provincial FDA and the FDA China Office supports our shared mission of assuring that medical products produced in China meet U.S. safety standards.

On day three, we traveled again by bullet train to Suzhou where we partnered with China’s Association for Medical Device Industry to hold a two-hour, town hall meeting with almost 200 of China’s big device manufacturers that export products to the United States.

Working with FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), our team provided information on Unique Device Identification (UDI) requirements. In the greater China region, it is estimated that there are nearly 4,000 medical device establishments affected by these requirements.

The next morning, we headed for Hangzhou. After about two hours by train, we arrived in Hangzhou ready to meet with provincial FDA officials. Our meeting focused on specific ways we could collaborate on future medical device and drugs outreach, and more effectively share information.

The final day of our weeklong journey started with an industry roundtable focused on pharmaceuticals, held in partnership with Zhejiang FDA. As fellow regulators, we joined together to engage in substantive discussion with representatives from major manufacturers located in the Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Shanghai regions, many of whom were interested in recent data integrity efforts in China. The FDA team then boarded our last train back to Shanghai for a final meeting with local officials that focused on our mutual priorities, as well as ways to expand and leverage efforts going forward.

The team flew back to Beijing feeling very satisfied that we accomplished much and clearer than ever that continued collaboration with Chinese regulators, industry and academia will help to ensure that medical products manufactured for the U.S. market are safe and effective. After all, one tree alone does not make a whole forest.

Leigh Verbois, Ph.D., is Director of FDA’s China Office in the Office of International Programs

The opinions expressed in this blog post are the author’s only and do not necessarily reflect those of MassDevice.com or its employees.

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