China's SFDA

Curious what is going on at SFDA these days?

China's drug administration has revoked the production licenses of 328 medical equipment firms due to "malpractice", said Yan Jiangying, spokeswoman of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) here Tuesday. The administration also revoked the registration licenses of 65 items of medical equipment because they failed quality tests and cancelled registrations of another 147, Yan said. None of the companies or items were named and Yan did not explain what types of "malpractice" had occurred. The SFDA would launch special inspections of licenses for domestic and imported medical devices from Sept. 18 to verify the authenticity of applications for domestic and imported medical appliances, with a complete verification of medical devices, including cardiac pacemakers, artificial heart valves, and blood transfusion equipment, said Yan.

They are a bit nervous. And understaffed. Our office had scheduled a meeting for a client with SFDA officials some months back, and the other day it was abruptly canceled. Naturally, they waited for company officials to make a special trip to China before formally canceling, adding "we will be busy for the next three months".

Americans are terribly popular at the moment with that particular branch of the Chinese government.