China's oversight of drug manufacturing is often faulted for being weak and ineffective, and the country is often considered the capital of drug counterfeiting. It has found drugmakers using discarded food oil for products and toxic gelatin in capsules. But indications over the weekend suggest the government intends to step up its drug manufacturing oversight. Reuters said that while China is reducing the number of cabinet-level agencies, it intends to elevate the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA). The South China Morning Post suggests the plan is not set in stone but that the government has been embarrassed enough by scandals affecting its own citizens that it may act. There have been signs from China in the last year that it intends to get tougher on the worst offenders. It closed down dozens of companies that were making drug capsules with high levels of toxins from using waste leather in the gelatin. It recently imprisoned 7 people tied to those operations. And Big Pharma players have said that when they collect the evidence against counterfeiters in China, authorities will take it and close them down. Read it here and here | More