[New Year's Address] Kim Gang-rip, Director of MFDS, "Additional Introduction of Vaccines and Therapeutics... Early Commercialization of Domestic Vaccines"

Kim Gang-rip, Commissioner of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, is attending and speaking at the Health and Welfare Committee plenary session held at the National Assembly on the 25th. Photo by Yoon Dong-ju doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] Kim Kang-lip, Commissioner of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, announced on the 31st that he will actively support the early commercialization of domestic vaccines along with the additional introduction of vaccines and oral therapeutics capable of responding to newly emerging COVID-19 variants.

In his New Year's address on the same day, Commissioner Kim said, "We will continue to support overcoming COVID-19 next year and further enhance the reliability of medical products." He added, "To facilitate the additional introduction of variant-specific vaccines and oral therapeutics, we will conduct rapid reviews even before approval applications and run national batch release approval procedures concurrently so that products can be shipped within 20 days after application."

Commissioner Kim also stated, "We will provide tailored consulting for the early commercialization of domestically developed vaccines and operate a bio-venture consortium." Regarding therapeutics, he said, "We will hold a biweekly development support council to promptly resolve difficulties in clinical trials."

Regarding the recent recurring issues of illegal drug manufacturing, he said, "We will fundamentally prevent illegal manufacturing through expanded surprise inspections and the introduction of punitive fines, and advance quality management to a global level." He also expressed a commitment to strengthen inspections and monitoring of the growing online food market. Commissioner Kim said, "We will strengthen monitoring of false and exaggerated advertising of foods traded through new distribution channels such as live commerce," and "We will conduct rapid inspections before delivery for fresh agricultural products delivered early in the morning."

He also expressed his ambition to establish large-scale research and development (R&D) investment and scientific regulatory capabilities as national infrastructure for innovative growth in the bio-health sector. Commissioner Kim said, "We were the third in the world to approve a domestic COVID-19 antibody therapeutic and received approval from the European Union (EU), recognizing our global-level capabilities." He added, "Based on this successful experience, we will strengthen regulatory coordination functions throughout the entire product lifecycle." Furthermore, he announced plans to promote the establishment of a product commercialization support center and to cultivate private regulatory experts, including 600 master's and doctoral-level R&D personnel and 9,800 field technicians over the next five years.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.