A brand new plan that raises the competitive power of the pharmaceutical industry by combining the most cutting-edge domestic information communication technology will be promoted next January in several stages.
On December 8, The Ministry of Knowledge Economy; Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs; and the Korea Food and Drug Administration announced that they had a meeting about the first process commission for medicine manufacturing and the convergence of information technology. At the same time they reported and confirmed a common basic plan of interagency from January 2010.
The process commission is chaired by Cho Seok, who is the section chief of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy's Office of Industries. It also includes representatives from the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs; the Korea Food and Drug Administration; the Korean Pharmaceutical Manufacturer's Association; Hanmi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd; Donga Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd; Samsung Medical Center; and SKT Future Technology Laboratory. In total, 25 government ministries, enterprise, and research centers are represented on the commission.
A representative of the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs said, "The pan-government process for the development of the domestic pharmaceutical industry was made for the first time by combining TFT which works for medicine manufacturing and information technology... It will be an opportunity for the domestic pharmaceutical industry to jump another stage."
The government is also going to make various policies which are about the distribution and production of the domestic pharmaceutical industry by dividing distribution plus IT and production plus IT.
Chairman Cho Seok said, "IT will be a core to get competitive power of pharmaceutical industry... the IT industry which supports the pharmaceutical industry will expand the market again and first circulation structures will be made."
