Asia Policy People In The News: South Korean Top Health Regulators Take Office
Executive Summary
Expanding risk management will be increasingly important to ensure drug safety, says Ryu Young-jin, new Minister of Korean Food and Drug Safety(MFDS).
As South Korean President Moon Jae-in held his first cabinet-level meeting, the country's top two health regulators have taken over the reins.
One of them is Park Neung-hoo, the new Minister of Health and Welfare. Park is a social welfare professor and comes with a US education.
Park took the office on July 24 when he vowed to strengthen the country's social safety net."To make an inclusive welfare state, there should be harmony between a sound market economy and a strong social safety net," Park told local media.
Park also pointed to a low birth rate and insufficient medical and other services for low-income people as some of the key issues that will be prioritized.
A career academic focusing on health and social welfare studies, Park has been a professor of social welfare at Kyonggi University, a private high education institute since March 2014. Before that, he was the head of Graduate School of Public Administration and Social Welfare at the same university.
Previously, he was a researcher at Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs from 1998 to 2004.
Park obtained his Ph.D. in social welfare from University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and his master's degree in politics from Seoul National University.
New MFDS Minister
Ryu Young-jin, a pharmacist by training and former vice chair of Korea Pharmaceutical Association (KPA), has become the new Minister of Food and Drug Safety(MFDS). MFDS was formerly the Korean Food and Drug Administration.
KPA is an established trade group for pharmacists with roughly 65,000 members.
As the Minister of Food and Drug Safety, Liu doesn't hold Cabinet posts and does not require parliamentary confirmation hearings.
In a message posted on the MFDS website, Ryu emphasized the importance of expanding risk management. "The importance of risk management for food and drug safety is ever growing and the scope of management is expanding." he said.
Prior to the position, Ryu was the head of the Busan offices of the KPA and the Korean Association Against Drug Abuse.
Ryu studied pharmacology at Pusan National University.
(Pink Sheet will highlight policy-oriented industry and government personnel changes in the Asia-Pacific region. Send announcements to Brian Yang.)
From the editors of PharmAsia News.