China (Beijing):- China’s have revised its drug law that can be in favor of Indian Manufacturers to enter into the Chinese market, China removes drugs that are legal in foreign countries but not approved in China from the category of fake medicines, which can turn out to be a get opportunity for Indian generic medicines in the country.
On 26th August 2019 i.e. Monday, The Standing Committee of National People’s Congress, passed the revised law to enhance management and supervision of the pharmaceutical market following numerous fake drugs & vaccine cases that had triggered a call for stronger measures to ensure drug safety.
India was demanding that China to open its pharmaceutical market for Indian drugs as no major Indian Pharma manufactured has managed to establish itself in the Chinese market because of the stringent regulations and the costs involved.
Generic drugs from Indian manufacturers, will not be treated as fake medicine in the Chinese market as per the revised Pharma rule which would be implemented from December 2019. Add to the new rule it also states that people who take these drugs without official approval into China can be granted leniency if the amount of the drug is small. Whereas there won’t be in any punishment unless and until the drugs cause any health problems or delays in anyone’s treatment.
Some experts take the move as a sign that China is opening its market to cheap generic medicines, especially from India, which caused national concern in 2018 following the release of the Chinese black comedy ‘Dying to Survive’.
Liu Changqiu, a health law expert and research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that countries may apply different standards to drugs, but patients should be allowed the right to buy legal foreign drugs as long as they are effective, he also added to his statement that the revision did not mean that China was ready to relax management on imported generic medicine. Whereas who want to import generic drugs for profit still have to follow Chinese laws to register and get approval in advance.
In 2016 and 2018 most of the registration of generic medicines in china were applied by the Indian and Switzerland’s Pharma manufacturer.
