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In Korea, generic drug and bioequivalence test are the hot issues since a new medical system of separation of dispensary from medical practice was started in 2000. The KFDA(Korea FDA) had revised several times . In vitro dissolution test has been extensively used as a quality control tool for solid oral dosage forms. In an effort to minimize unnecessary human testing, in vitro/in vivo correlations (IVIVC) between in vitro dissolution and in vivo bioavailability are increasingly becoming an integral part on extended release drug product development. The recently published US guidance, will be helpful for us to make our own guideline.

Numerous drugs are chiral because they possess one or more chiral centers. Enantiomers may differ in their pharmacokinetic, pharmacological and toxicological properties. However, the significance of stereochemistry of drugs in their therapeutic uses has received relatively little attention until recently. The US FDA issued a guideline on stereoisomeric drugs in 1992, and the European agency describes tests for new drug substances which are optically active in an ICH(International Conference of Harmonization) guideline. According to the guidance, enantiomers may differ in their pharmacokinetic, pharmacological and toxicological properties. Therefore, in this paper, we examined the recently published Canadian guidance, stereochemical issues in chiral drug development, which will be references to make a guidance on stereochemical issues in chiral drug development in Korea.

After new medical system of separation of dispensary from medical practice was started in 2000 in Korea, to expand bioequivalence-proven drug products and to ensure the credibility of the therapeutic equivalence of generic drugs are hot issues in Korea. It will be obligatory to submit bioequivalence reports for getting licenses of all generic prescription drugs in the near future. Like other countries such as US and Japan, the KFDA also has a plan to re-evaluate the already approved drugs by bioequivalence studies. Therefore, it becomes more necessary to develop bioequivalence-demonstrating methods for specific preparations such as topical drug products among already approved drug products. There are some differences between US and Japanese guidances of bioequivalence studies of generic drug products for topical use. The information on Japanese guidance and the guidance's Q&As is already provided in our previous paper. In this paper, we examined the US guideline published in 1995 and compared with the Japanese guideline, which will give a useful information to make a guidance on bioequivalence studies of topical drug products in Korea.

A new medical system of separation of dispensary from medical practice was started in 2000 in Korea. To expand bioequivalence-proven drug products and to ensure the credibility of the therapeutic equivalence of generic drug are hot issues in Korea. The KFDA also has a plan to revise the pharmaceutical affairs law that bioequivalence reports of all the generic prescription drugs should be submitted to the KFDA in the application for drug approval. Therefore, it becomes more necessary to develop bioequivalence-demonstrating methods for specific preparations such as topical drug products. There are some differences between US and Japanese guidances of bioequivalence studies of generic drug products for topical use. In this paper, we examined the recently published Japanese guideline, Guideline for Bioequivalence Studies of Generic Products For Topical Uses, and Q&A of the guideline, which will be references to make a guidance on bioequivalence studies of topical drug products in Korea.

A new medical system was started in Korea in 2000 and pharmaceutical affairs law was revised in 2001. According to the revised law, generic substitution is permitted only to the drug products which are proven to be bioequivalent to the reference listed drugs. To expand the list of bioequivalence-proven drug products and to ensure the credibility of the therapeutic equivalence of generic drug are the hot issues in Korea. Also, the KFDA has a plan to revise the pharmaceutical affairs law that bioequivalence reports of all the generic prescription drug products should be submitted to the KFDA for drug approval after July in 2004. Therefore, it is increasing the necessity to develop the bioequivalence-demonstrating methods for specific drug substances and preparations which require to conduct food-effect bioavailability or bioequivalence study. There are some differences between US and Japanese guidances of food-effect bioavailability and bioequivalence studies. In this paper, we examined the recently published US guidance about food-effect study and it will be a reference to make our own guidance about food-effect bioavailability and bioequivalence guidances in Korea.