FDA Expands PREDICT System to Rank Risky Imports

The FDA is expanding a new computer system called PREDICT to rank imports according to risk as one element in the agency’s strategy to identify and block unsafe products from entering the U.S.

Noting that the FDA cannot conduct a sufficient number of inspections at foreign manufacturing facilities to help ensure product safety, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said PREDICT, which was piloted in Los Angeles last year, is being introduced in New York and the agency hopes to use it nationwide by the end of spring.

The new system — an acronym for Predictive Risk-Based Evaluation for Dynamic Import Compliance Targeting — uses a variety of factors to give imports a risk score, which allows investigators to check the riskiest items first, Hamburg said last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
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