China to strengthen drug safety

China’s State Council (Cabinet) this week approved a blueprint to establish a credit rating system and intensify monitoring for pharmaceutical groups to boost the country's drug safety over the next five years, reports the Xinhua news service.

"Our country's pharmaceutical companies are experiencing various problems such as the lack of an integrated credit system, inadequate supervision and a weak technical foundation. Medicinal safety is in a high-risk stage," according to a statement released Wednesday after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

The 2011-2015 plan set the general goal of "sharply" increasing the level of safety and people's satisfaction toward drugs by ensuring all pharmaceutical products meet the standards of a newly revised regulation on the quality management of medical products as of the end of 2015, said the statement.