The authority’s chief pharmacist, William Chui Chun-min, said on Thursday that doctors will no longer need to undergo evaluations at their own hospitals and will be able to apply directly to the company’s headquarters for the introduction of new drugs from mid-November.
“The two-tiered assessment may have slowed down the process. We believe it is unnecessary,” Chui said on a radio show.
“Instead, we can centralize the assessment…It takes just five months to introduce a new drug into the prescription.”
Under the current evaluation system, it takes about 10 months for a new drug to be included in public hospital prescriptions.
Pharmaceutical companies are asking doctors to submit applications, which will be submitted to public hospitals for review before reaching the agency’s headquarters.
