"The recent recall of valsartan API made by Zhejiang Huahai (China) following detection of a potential carcinogen has revealed the weak and scientifically unsound basis of the generic approval system in Korea", Prof. Lee spoke in a telephone interview with KBS. Prof. Lee detailed about this issue in a newspaper column. The number of recalled valsartan generics in Korea was 115, which was way greater than that in the UK (only 8) and Japan (only 1). The reason behind this difference was that Korea has maintained a relatively low bar for the approval of generics. For example, any company can sell generics if they could obtain them from anyone who has a marketing authorization of the generic. In other words, the company is not necessarily responsible for the quality of the generic, nor they have to show that they could make a qualified generic, which meets all of the regulatory requirements including the proof of bioequivalence. 

As a result, there are numerous generics for a single original product. This, in turn, has introduced an exceptionally high competition among the companies, which has implicitly encouraged unethical business practices such as kick-back and unlawful rebates. The issue also has brought some quality issues to manufacturing of generics in Korea. For example, many companies have switched their API source after approval, mostly to a low-quality Chinese company, of which Zhejiang Huahai may be one. 

Therefore, to preempt the recurrence of this quality API source issue for generics in Korea, the approval system has to be heightened, Prof. Lee summarized.    

The Radiological Medicine Webzine interviewed Dr. Howard Lee, who shared his perspective on the new trend in clinical trials, reflected by the active employment of innovative technologies to survive stricter regulations and scientific requirements. The full interview can be found here and the school website has also highlighted it. 

Hyewon Hwang, a 2017 summer intern of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology, shared her internship experience at CCADD in an interview with GSCST Blog. During her internship, Hyewon was involved in a project where machine learning was used to solve real world problems in drug development, particularly at the junction of medicine and pharmaceutical science. She was impressed how diverse and share-minded the people at CCADD were. "It was truly what convergence should be all about", Hyewon added, "And, the internship program at CCADD was very well planned and thoughtfully organized such that I could learn and get exposed to the state-of-the-art application of deep learning to practical issues and problems." Hyewon also emphasized that she would recommend the internship program to anyone who would want to learn what life looks like at a graduate school. Hyewon's full interview can be watched here. 

The Convergence Story, a periodical news letter published by the Graduate School of Convergence and Science Technology (GCST) at Seoul National University, interviewed Dr. Yuchae Jung on Sep 21 2017 about her past research experience and accomplishments, new research interests, and future plans. In the interview, Dr. Jung emphasized the application of artificial intelligence technology to streamline clinical drug development, particularly for efficient patient enrollment using machine learning algorithms based on the electronic medical record (EMR). More details about Dr. Jung's interview can be found at News letter.