GRS Blog

Final Conference of Good Practice in Traditional Chinese Medicine (GP-TCM)

31/5/2012

Although it is now the end of the three year GP-TCM project (funded under the EU FP7 programme), it certainly isn't the end of GP-TCM. 

The Final Conference of the GP-TCM consortium took place in Kerkrade, the Netherlands in mid April.  Bobby and Greer Deal of Global Regulatory Services (GRS) were there too. It was held at the Rolduc Conference Centre (http://www.rolduc.com/), an historic monastery, and attracted more than 70 beneficiary and non-beneficiary partners as well as key stakeholders. The meeting was a closed-door event and allowed for each Work Package (ten in total) to present on the highlights and challenges they had faced in the preceding three years. 

So why isn't it the end of GP-TCM?  Well one of the key objectives of the project was to leave a legacy in the form of a new 'organisation'.  This has been confirmed to be the GP-TCM Research Association.  All attendees of the final conference are members of this Association and are now actively seeking new members to build on the foundations laid by the original project.  If you are interested in joining please click on the link or contact Global Regulatory Services (GRS) direct.  Very importantly, the Association isn't limited to Traditional Chinese Medicines, it includes all traditional medicines.  As Dr Qihe Xu of King's College London said "we are an inclusive membership Association, not exclusive".

Another key objective was also achieved.  This was the publication of the GP-TCM Special Issue in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology to which Greer Deal, Director of Global Regulatory Services, is a contributing author for two of the published papers.

The Final Conference was captured by Phoenix TV news who also filmed the GP-TCM Congress which followed at Leiden in The Netherlands.  It's all in Chinese so if anyone would like to provide an English translation please feel free to do so!

Global Regulatory Services (GRS) is an active supporter of the GP-TCM Research Association.  We are keen to develop Good Practice in the research, development and commercialisation of traditional Chinese Herbal Medicines.  Later we can apply what has been learnt to other traditional medicines.

Author: Greer Deal, Director of Global Regulatory Services