Taylor’s centre of excellence

THE Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at Taylor’s University has been endorsed as only one of three Training Centre of Excellence (CoE) for global supply chain integrity in the world.

The faculty is the first in Malaysia to be given the endorsement by the Asia-Pacific Economic Committee (Apec) Life Sciences Innovation Forum (LSIF).

The Taylor’s Apec LSIF Centre of Excellence for Supply Chain Integrity, led by the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, is also in collaboration with other CoEs, industry, governmental and non-governmental agencies around the world.

This network aims to provide training and consultancy to maintain the integrity of the global supply chain of safe, effective, and quality medical products, thus maintaining the safety and health of consumers.

“It is important to keep abreast of the latest events in the healthcare industry, and have access to a global network of like-minded healthcare and industry practitioners to ensure that we can find ways to mitigate those that intend to do harm towards people without access to proper medical supplies, ” said Taylor’s University Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences executive dean Emeritus Prof Dr P.T. Thomas.

He added that he was pleased the faculty is now a part of the bigger picture in this worldwide challenge to ensure that access to legitimate medical products is not disrupted.

Among the selection criteria set by Apec for CoEs include being a trusted global education, or regulatory or science-setting organisation.

The institution must also have the ability to develop and deliver training programmes against priorities set by the committee.

This includes the CoE’s credibility and ability to carry out these programmes through their own staff, visiting regulatory staff and other experts.

This endorsement follows a successful completion of a three-day training on “Good Distribution Practice, Track and Trace and Internet Sales” in September 2019, at the Taylor’s Lakeside Campus.

The session saw the attendance of almost 100 participants from nine countries – with speakers from the Ministry of Health Malaysia, non-governmental organisations, the US Food Drug Administration (FDA), and the pharmaceutical industry.