South Korea, the U.S., Japan, India and the European Union(EU) have held the inaugural meeting of their consultative group on supply chains in the biopharmaceutical area. 

The group, comprising the governments and private companies of the four countries and the EU, opened the first meeting of the Biopharmaceutical Alliance on Wednesday in San Diego. 

The alliance was launched after the four countries and the EU held a meeting on critical and emerging technologies last December and shared the view that cooperation among key countries is crucial for the sake of safe supply chains for medical supplies in the event of another pandemic.

The five parties agreed that the production of key substances and active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are all needed to make medicine, is concentrated in a small number of countries and vowed to seek ways to improve such condition by devising a substantial map of supply chains related to medicine. 

The participants also agreed on the need to improve their country’s drug authorization system in a balanced manner as part of efforts to diversify supply chains.