Around the Globe
rof. Hisham Bin Saad Al-Jadhey, CEO of the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), outlines the SFDA’s key priorities under its current strategic plan. He also touches on why domestic pharma and medtech manufacturing is important to the SFDA, pricing issues for innovative new therapies, and the role of the Authority within the Saudi “Vision 2030” plan.
Q: Hisham, could you start by introducing the mandate and mission of the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), since the role of the regulator differs across countries?
A: In Saudi Arabia, the regulator–the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA)–looks at any product that affects health, in direct and indirect ways. Having done a global benchmark, we know that compared to other regulators in the world, we have one of the largest mandates, since we cover food, drugs, medical devices, and even agricultural products like animal feed and pesticides, as well as cosmetics.
Our mission is to protect public health and improve its quality while fostering trade and investment across the sectors we cover. To do this, we have regulations and standards that we apply on products both manufactured in, and imported into, Saudi Arabia. As a result, we are also responsible for the border control and inspection in the areas that we cover. We are directly present in over 16 air, land, and seaports across the country, and in other ports we are also available remotely. We work with other governmental entities to perform such inspections.
Republished with permission.