State Council approves plan to vouchsafe drug safety

BEIJING - The State Council approved a blueprint on Wednesday to establish a credit rating system and intensify monitoring of pharmaceutical groups to boost the country's drug safety over the next five years.

"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 on Wednesday after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao.

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