GHTF Creating Ties With Asian, Latin American Countries

Future plans of the Global Harmonization Task Force (GHTF) include expanding the organization’s ties with other countries, especially those in Latin America and Asia.

Speaking at the GHTF’s conference in Washington, D.C., Chairman Larry Kessler cited as a “measure of our success” recent partnerships with the Asian Harmonization Working Party and the Pan American Health Organization. The task force also met this past summer in Vietnam with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, he said, adding that health ministers from the association’s member nations committed to align their regulatory frameworks with the GHTF by 2010.

Discussion of the growing involvement of countries beyond the founding five (the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Japan and Australia), which have experienced recent growth in the device market, was a major theme of the three-day conference.