Friday, January 28, 2011

The RAinfoBlog begins

Today I start this blog as a place to share information of interest to regulatory affairs professionals.  I'm not sure where it will go, but initially I will post information that I hear about, items that I become aware of, and items that I find on the internet during my daily travels there.  Hopefully these may be of interest to some of you.  If I post something, it will at least have been interesting to me in some way.  The only criteria I have at this point is that an item relates to the US or xUS regulation of a product in one or more of the following areas:

   pharmaceutical products (Rx and OTC)
   biological products
   medical devices
   in vitro diagnositc products
   clinical laboratory testing
   pharmacogenomics
   personalized medicine
   companion diagnostics
   combination products
   genetic testing (including direct to consumer)
   foods
   recomibinant materials
   cosmetics
   tobacco products
   holistic medicine

As a regulatory professional myself (I have been doing this in the US since 1976), I find the area interesting, at times challenging, even sometimes a little bit absurd where all I can do is shake my head and carry on.  It is never dull. 

There is a plethora of information readily available on the internet with more added each day, new laws, new regulatons, confusing and conflicting requirements, guidance and advice that do not specify expectations that can be relied upon to not change next month. 

To try to make sense of this area and capture it in some way, in 1996 I started several activities to try to spread the gospel concerning available electronic information.  In those early days, it was dial up electronic telephone bulletin boards (I ran one) and "fax back" systems including some early efforts by the US Food and Drug administration with these tools, which now seem quaint and somewhat primitive.  It has now developed from simple internet websites (the remnants of mine is at http://www.rainfo.com/).  I hope to revive it and give it new life soon.  Websites have grown more sophisticated as time went by and many nice and useful "web portals" still exist.  (How many regulatory professionals do you know that still have a subscription the US Federal Register paper edition?  Mine whent by the wayside a long time ago.)  Now we are in the area of social media with RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and blogs galore.  (Apologies to you all for any of the many social media tools I left out.) 

I will leave the option turned on for you to post comments to this blog.  I hope you will do so in the spirit of sharing things you too find or have found useful.

So here goes.  I'm sure it will be an INTERESTING EXPERIENCE.  I hope you find it so as well.













Don Kafader
Cary, North Carolina, United States

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