• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.123-125
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• 2004

• Food Industry And Nutrition
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.35-37
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• 2006

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.58.2-58.2
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• 1998

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.210-223
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• 2013

Backgrounds: Escalating pharmaceutical expenditure has threatened the sustainability of National Health Insurance system in Korea. Generic medicines allow patients to access safe, effective, high-quality medicines at low cost, thus insurers could achieve significant financial savings by promotion of generics, if they are priced much lower than the originator. The purpose of this study was to review generic pricing as well as promotion policies in other countries and assess the implication of those policies. Methods: We reviewed the main measures adopted by the developed countries such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, especially in countries where governments are the largest third-party payers or insurance finance resource is the national health insurance. Results: The foreign countries's experience with generic medicine policy shows that demand-side policies such as physician budgets, international nonproprietary name prescribing, generics substitution, patients co-payment as well as supply-side policies relating to pricing and reimbursement seems to play a critical role in developing the generic medicines market. Conclusion: Various strategy should be implemented to promote generic drug use.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.360-368
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• 2018

Background: The proportion of pharmaceutical expenditure out of total health-care expenditure in South Korea is high. In 2016, 25.7% of national health insurance (NHI) spending was for pharmaceuticals. Given the increasing demands for the access to newly introduced medicines and following increase in pharmaceutical spending, the management of NHI pharmaceutical expenditure is becoming more difficult. Methods: This study analyzed the data claimed to NHI for pharmaceutical reimbursement from 2010 to 2016. Results: The policy implications with respect to the trends and problems in spending by drug groups were elicited. First, the proportion of off-patent drugs spending which were treated to chronic disease was much higher than anti-cancer drug spending. Second, the spending to the newly introduced high-costed medicine increased, however, current price-reduction mechanism was not sufficient to manage their expenditure efficiently. Conclusion: Our system seems to need several revisions to improve the efficiency of pharmaceutical expenditure and to cope with high-costed medicines. This study suggested that the prices of off-patent drugs need to be regularly readjusted and the Price-Volume Agreement System should be operated more flexibly as well.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.14
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• pp.6055-6059
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• 2015

Background: Medication policy development in Thailand is continually promoting rational drug use. Letrozole, an endocrine therapy drug, is usually prescribed for post-menopausal status early and advanced stage breast cancer. After Ministry of Public Health announced Letrozole as compulsory licensed drug in 2009, more breast cancer patients can access to this drug at low cost especially those within universal coverage schemes. To ensure that Letrozole is rationally prescribed, the drug utilization study was conducted. Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the appropriate use of Letrozole in breast cancer and the relationship between appropriate use and health benefit schemes. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study to evaluate use of Letrozole in breast cancer patients was performed for six months between January - June 2010 in seven regional cancer hospitals, Thailand. All prescriptions of Letrozole were identified from pharmacy dispensing databases and prescription papers. A medical record review was also performed to evaluate appropriate use referring to the drug use evaluation criteria. The approved criterion of this study was referred from the guideline of Thai National Formulary version 2010. Results: There were 681 prescriptions of Letrozole for 254 breast cancer patients with an average age of $58.6{\pm}10.0years$. The patients in universal coverage scheme (UCS), civil servant medication benefit scheme (CSMBS) and social security scheme (SSS) were 77.7%, 18.5% and 8.7% respectively. 10.6% were prescribed Letrozole for the first time. Letrozole were prescribed by oncologists (82.8%). The average number of tablets per prescription was $58{\pm}10$. Calcium supplements were prescribed concomitant with Letrozole for 19.4%. To assess drug use evaluation criteria, 45 prescriptions were excluded because of uncompleted clinical data, 636 prescriptions were evaluated. The study showed 86 prescriptions (13.5%) with inappropriate use including 6 (0.9%) not prescribed for estrogen receptor (ER) and/or progesterone receptor (PR) positive, 31 (4.9%) not prescribed for post-menopausal and 49 (7.7%) not prescribed for an appropriate duration. Appropriate use percentages in different health benefit schemes were similar, 85.7% of CSMBS, 86.4% of SSS and 86.7% of UCS. The relationship between health benefit scheme and appropriate use of Letrozole was not significantly different, ${\chi}^2$ (2, N = 636) = 0.081, p > 0.05. Conclusions: The study showed inappropriate use in breast cancer patients because of non-compliance with duration, menopausal status and hormone receptor requirements. To prescribe appropriate indication did not referred to the appropriate practice along the treatment. Drug use evaluation proved very useful for detecting the sign of inappropriate use and allows immediate feedback to the stakeholder for developing medication policy in the future. Importantly, there was no significantly difference in appropriate use of Letrozole across health benefit schemes.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.268-276
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• 2014

Purpose: The aim of this study is to estimate total sugar intake and identify major food sources of total sugar intake in the diet of the Korean population. Methods: Dietary intake data of 33,745 subjects aged one year and over from the KNHANES 2008-2011 were used in the analysis. Information on dietary intake was obtained by one day 24-hour recall method in KNHANES. A database for total sugar content of foods reported in the KNHANES was established using Release 25 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, a total sugar database from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and information from nutrition labeling of processed foods. With this database, total sugar intake of each subject was estimated from dietary intake data using SAS. Results: Mean total sugar intake of Koreans was 61.4 g/person/day, corresponding to 12.8% of total daily energy intake. More than half of this amount (35.0 g/day, 7.1% of daily energy intake) was from processed foods. The top five processed food sources of total sugar intake for Koreans were granulated sugar, carbonated beverages, coffee, breads, and fruit and vegetable drinks. Compared to other age groups, total sugar intake of adolescents and young adults was much higher (12 to 18 yrs, 69.6 g/day and 19 to 29 yrs, 68.4 g/day) with higher beverage intake that beverage-driven sugar amounted up to 25% of total sugar intake. Conclusion: This study revealed that more elaborated and customized measures are needed for control of sugar intake of different subpopulation groups, even though current total sugar intake of Koreans was within the range (10-20% of daily energy intake) recommended by Dietary Reference Intakes for Koreans. In addition, development of a more reliable database on total sugar and added sugar content of foods commonly consumed by Koreans is warranted.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.339-346
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• 2011

Over the past few decades, drug regulatory agencies in advanced countries have been emphasizing pharmacometrics as a tool for an effective and efficient drug evaluation. Despite this international movement, the value of pharmacometrics is still poorly recognized by the Korean drug evaluation system. This study aimed to analyze the current state of utilization of pharmacometrics by foreign drug regulatory agencies and develop a road map to guide the implementation pharmacometrics into the Korean drug evaluation system. MEDLINE and foreign drug regulatory agency database were extensively searched to obtain scientific research articles, guidance, regulations and pharmacometric review reports on foreign pharmacometric drug evaluation system. A systematic roadmap comprised of 3 stages to implement pharmacometrics in Korean drug evaluation system was formulated after analyzing the collected data in tune with the current evaluation system. Pharmacometrics is an urgently required tool to achieve an efficient drug evaluation and review in Korea. The road map developed by this study is expected to aid in setting up a policy to implement and utilize pharmacometrics in Korea.

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.280.2-281
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• 2002

This presentation reports the trends of the drug abuses(DA) and the mortalities related to drug-toxicants(MDT) in the Central area of Korea in 2001. We surveyed the DA cases and MDT. which were requested to analyze the drug-toxicants in the Central district office of National Institute of Scientific Investigation. he detected drugs on DA cases were methamphetamine. marihuana. opiates. inhalants(toluene. butane. ropane). dextromethorphane. carisoprodol. benzodiazepines, nalbuphine. fenfluamine. and iscellaneous in order of cases. Men are more liable to drug abuses than women. and the most common age group was 30s. Surveys of MDT shows that the defected toxicants are paraquat(sedative). methomy(insecticide). dicholrvos (insecticide). benxodiaxeqines(anxiolytic), and miscellaneous in order do cases. Men's intoxications by the drug-toxicants are more occured than woman's And most common intoxicated age group was 40s. These trends of the DA cases and the MDT in Central Area fo Korea. can help the forensic toxicologists and government to plan the prevention policy of the DA cases and MDT as well as its future estimation.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.133-146
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• 2021

In the field of food and drug, the role of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is becoming more important for national and public safety as well as national development and improvement of public welfare. Food and drug statistics are being used to determine the priorities and directions of policy for the promotion of public health and the development of the health industry. This study focuses on statistics from the MFDS. Through the analysis of the MFDS's statistics, the current status of the MFDS's production statistics was identified, and the survey of utilization and satisfaction of the MFDS's statistics was conducted on food and drug experts who actually use the statistics of the MFDS. In order to identify problems of the MFDS statistics, environmental factors affecting the MFDS statistics were derived, and the priorities of improvement tasks for its statistics were identified using AHP and IPA. In addition, the current situation of the statistical system, which serve as the basic coordinate for the establishment and execution of domestic food and drug policies, was identified and implications were provided.