• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• 제36권6호
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• pp.421-435
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• 2006

The objective of this report is to introduce the European Union's variation rules governing medicinal products that are subject to post-approval changes. The EMEA outlines a variety of changes occurring to approved medicinal products. It also recommends a marketing authorisation holder to follow specific post-approval applications in various situations. For instance, the Commission Regulation(EC) No. 1085/2003 explains variation types and suggests post-authorisation procedures with which an applicant should comply. In all cases of minor and major variations the applicant has to investigate and validate whether or not the intended changes would have impact on the safety, efficacy and quality of a drug product. The applicant should then submit to the EMEA a variation application with adequate documentation in support of the notified changes. This procedure is implemented to ensure that changes to the approved medicinal product do not cause my public health concerns. In fact, the post-authorisation guidance categorizes post-approval changes into type IA/IB variations, type II variations, and extension applications. Such classifications determine administrative procedures to be followed in an efficient manner. Based on the type of a variation, the regulatory agency opts to reduce or extend the evaluation time-frame. The thrust of the EU's post-authorisation guidance is introduced in text with appropriate explanation. All these information will be likely to be helpful in updating a Korean regulatory guidance that could better deal with post-approval changes to generic drugs available in the market.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제40권4호
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• pp.278-284
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• 2007

Despite extensive researches and pre-market clinical trials, only limited information on the adverse drug reactions (ADRs) of a drug can be collected at the time of market approval from regulatory agency. ADRs constitute a major public health problem. Post-marketing surveillance of drugs is important to detect signals for ADR. In Korea, one of the main methods for monitoring the safety of marketed drugs is spontaneous reporting system of suspected ADRs. Re-examination and re-evaluation system are in force for monitoring safety of new market approval drugs and currently under marketing drugs, respectively. Recently, regional pharmacovigilance centers were designated from Korean Food and Drug Administration for facilitating ADR surveillance. Over recent years, with the development of information technology, there has been an increased interest in establishing data mining system for detecting signals from Health Insurance Review Agency database. The purpose of this paper is to review the current status of Korean ADR surveillance system and suggest the possible solutions for developing active pharmacovigilance system in Korea.

• 한국임상약학회지
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• 제32권3호
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• pp.226-237
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• 2022

Background: Monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of patients with different types of cancer, such as cetuximab, have been widely used for the past 10 years in oncology. Although drug information package insert contains some representative adverse events which were observed in the clinical trials for drug approval, the overall adverse event patterns on the real-world cetuximab use were less investigated. Also, there have been no published papers that deal with the full spectrums of adverse drug events of cetuximab using national-wide drug safety surveillance systems. Methods: In this study, we detected new adverse event signals of cetuximab in the Korea Adverse Event Reporting System (KAERS) by utilizing proportional reporting ratios, reporting odds ratios, and information components indices. Results: The KAERS database included 869,819 spontaneous adverse event reports, among which 2,116 reports contained cetuximab. We compared the labels of cetuximab among the United States, European Union, Australia, Japan, and Korea to compare the current labeling information and newly detected signals of our study. Some of the signals including hyperkeratosis, tenesmus, folliculitis, esophagitis, neuralgia, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, and skin/throat tightness were not labeled in the five countries. Conclusion: We identified new signals that were not known at the time of market approval.

• 대한한의학회지
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• 제36권4호
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• pp.35-41
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• 2015

Objectives: This study aimed to provide basic information for the trend of individual-authorization on functional food materials in Korea to side of Korean medicine. Methods: Approval of materials for individual-authorized functional food in Korea was analyzed from 2004 to August 2015 using database from Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS), regarding the kinds of function, materials and their functional level by year. Results: Korean functional food market has rapidly grown to 1.56 trillion Won in 2014, with about 10% of annual growth rate. In particular, the increase of individual-authorized functional food is worth of notices, in detail 313 kinds of functional materials covering 31 body functions have been approved by August 2015. 15.7% of individual-authorized functional foods have used the herbal materials. This quantitative and qualitative expansion of functional foods, especially of individual-authorized functional foods, will affect the herbal drug industry negatively. Conclusion: This study figured out the current pattern of material approval for individual-authorized functional food in Korea, which would be essential in development of strategies by Korean medicine community in order to overcome such conditions.

• 한국응용약물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국응용약물학회 2007년도 Proceedings of The Convention
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• pp.117-126
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• 2007

Cosmetics have mild activity on the human body, and intended to be used for cleaning, beautifying the human body, and also keeping healthy skin or hair, promoting attractiveness or altering the appearance. Functional cosmetics, in other words cosmeceuticals, are restricted for following functions: 1) Whiten the skin tone by preventing deposition of melanin pigmentation or lightening of the color of melanin of skin, 2) alleviate or improve wrinkles of the skin, and 3) protect the skin from the ultra violet rays from the sun. According to the functions of the functional cosmetics, skin whitening products, anti-wrinkle products, and suntan & sunscreen products are manufactured. In order to manufacture and import the functional cosmetics in Korea, the approval process in KFDA is necessary. The review process in KFDA is performed based on The Korea Food and Drug Administration Notification 2007-44, "The Regulation of Reviewing the Functional Cosmetics" (June 29, 2007). Only after the approval of KFDA, functional cosmetics are allowed to advertise to the consumers for their functionality.

• 약학회지
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• 제56권1호
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• pp.60-65
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• 2012

This study examines factors associated with drug approvals and patent issues of the Korean pharmaceutical firms. The 22 firms were selected based on 2006 year's publicly noticed sales amount. Number of approved drugs was identified through Korea Food and Drug Administration and the information regarding the patents that each firm has issued during the year 2000~2006 was collected from the Korea Patent Office. The number of approved drugs has increased annually, especially after the introduction of substance patent system in 1987 and in 2000 again with the policy change into the separation of drug prescribing and dispensing practice. The number of initial approval of NCEs as well as the number of patents per firm decreased during the year 2000~2006. The 12 firms with larger revenue occupied more than 80% of the patents being issued. There was a positive relationship between share of prescription drugs out of approved drugs and the average number of patents issued. However, number of approved drugs did not show positive association with the number of patents issued per firm. Therefore, the study results imply that firms need to invest more in increasing number of approvals for their specific prescription drugs in order to achieve a good performance in the future.

• 한국임상약학회지
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• 제28권4호
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• pp.263-272
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• 2018

Nonprescription drugs have become increasingly important in Korean healthcare. By leveraging lower-cost drugs and reducing expenditure associated with fewer physician visits, the nonprescription segment can deliver tremendous value to individual consumers and the Korean healthcare system. Many countries have provided simpler and more rapid routes to market entry for qualifying nonprescription drug products, using the established data on drug safety and efficacy, as well as public and professional opinion. In US, the FDA waived the pre-approval process for over-the-counter (OTC) drugs marketed through the OTC Monograph Process. In Australia and Canada, different OTC product application levels are defined, with a reduced level of assessment required when the risks to consumers are considered low. Japan established a new OTC evaluation system in 2014 to facilitate the Rx-to-OTC switch process. The legislative framework for medicinal products in the European Union allows for drugs to be approved with reference to appropriate bibliographic data for old active substances with well-established uses. Through a comparison of the regulatory framework and the requirements for nonprescription approval process in different countries, several ways to improve regulatory practice for the evaluation of nonprescription drugs in Korea have been suggested.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• 제37권6호
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• pp.403-411
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• 2007

The importance of pharmaceutical additives is increasing and the sorts and application categories are being classified in detail. International pharmaceutical council based on IPEC-America, IPEC-Europe and JPEC was established for specifications, safety and efficacy, approval regulations of pharmaceutical additives in 1992. Therefore, scrutinized examination of pharmaceutical additives used for already approved domestic drug was performed under the supervision of KFDA and nomenclature on application categories of pharmaceutical additives was summarized and endowed their glossary. Additionally, the boundaries of pharmaceutical additives according to the dosage forms based on the principle of the dosage forms of Korean pharmacopoeia were classified. These informations could be available for standards & experimental methods, approval, evaluation, audit of drug and contribution for national welfare.

• 대한약학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한약학회 2003년도 Proceedings of the Convention of the Pharmaceutical Society of Korea Vol.2-1
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• pp.28-28
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• 2003

After approval, the drug should be manufactured and maintained with uniform quality. To assure the quality of drugs, the drug companies should comply with GMP guidelines and regulatory authorities should assess their compliance. In this article, I want to review the definition of drugs as well as the quality surveillance system. To be controlled as drugs, they ought to have their own specifications and test methods. (omitted)

• 한국임상약학회지
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.22-29
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• 2011

Purpose: This study aims to investigate how gender-based differences are actually reflected on drug approval. Methods: Data on gender-based differences of drugs were analyzed by searching PDR (Physician's Desk Reference) with the keyword, "GENDER". Results: There were descriptions related to gender in product directions of 361 drugs in 2009 PDR, out of which 63 items actually showed gender-related differences. Drug categories showing comparatively high gender-based differences were nervous system, cardiovascular system, and alimentary tract and metabolism. Pharmacokinetic differences between genders were observed most frequently; compared to men, 32 drugs showed higher absorption while 18 drugs revealed lower clearance in women. There were 2 drugs which gender should be considered before prescribing, and 5 drugs which showed different severity of adverse effects according to gender. Conclusions: It is necessary to establish domestic policies for drug approval and use which reflects gender-based differences through sufficient researches.