China to Practice DMMF System in Medicine Industry      

The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) has pledged to advance a plan of lifting medicine standards to boost competition mechanism.
   China will introduce a management system, called DMMF, to enhance and extend drug formulation makers' supervisions on feedstock, assistants and packing materials. It will require drug formulation firms to conduct audits to examine raw materials and assistants.
   In the initial promotional stage of program, the system is likely to cover traditional Chinese medicine injection, and later it will be linked to the nation's basic medicines list, which is yet to be released, according to a press conference by SFDA on February 11th.
   The drug administration said it accepted 3 413 applications for new drug registration in 2008, down 75% and 18% from 2006 and 2007. This is mainly because the slump in new applications for generic drugs and drugs with minor dosage form changing. The applications for generic drugs plunged 85% and 46% from 2006 and 2007.
   This means new applications have started to return to normal level, and applicants are becoming more rational, and the order in the drug research and development field is improving, a senior official at the drug administration said.