The Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) will hold the 4th Self-Medication Collaborative Asian Regulator Expert Roundtable (Self-CARER) from March 19 to 22, 2018, co-chaired with Japan and Thailand. It is one of the most important health policies of the WHO to advocate self-care. Asian governments put emphasis on this issue and convene the conference for regulatory authorities, to better integrate the regulatory gap of OTC medicines in the Asia-Pacific region. Many countries participate, including Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Singapore and New Zealand.
There are 3 parts to this 4-day conference. The first part is the training course for regulators, to introduce the WHO policies and registration of OTC medicines. The second part is the closed meeting among government officials, to discuss issues about self-care, reclassification of prescription drugs, and simplified registration of OTC medicines. The last part is an international conference opened for industries. Inside the program, each country will share their managements of OTC medicines, and invite experts to provide perspectives on future market trends. Over 200 people will join this conference.
In response to the coming of an ageing society, to improve the accessibility of OTC medicines and boost the establishment of regulations for self-care and self-medication are the key points of this Self-CARER conference. The TFDA aims to accelerate and strengthen the regulations of self-care and OTC medicines for the participating countries through the conference, to improve the environment of self-care and quality of healthy life.