NZ’s largest natural health products company says the three-year transition time for the introduction of a regulatory regime governing the manufacturing, marketing and exporting of natural health products is “too long”.
“We’ve been waiting long enough for this legislation. Let’s get on with it and make a start by reducing the transition period from three to two years,” Vitaco’s general manager of New Zealand sales, Brian Dewar, told a Parliamentary Select Committee on March 26.
The Health Select Committee was meeting in Auckland to hear submissions on the Natural Health Products Bill. An East Tamaki company, Vitaco, is New Zealand’s largest dietary supplements and natural health products company with 400 employees and more than $100 million in export sales.
Dewar told the committee that Vitaco was “overwhelmingly in favour” of nearly all aspects of the proposed legislation.
“We believe, with some amendments, the resulting legislation will serve the best interests of the New Zealand consumer, our export industry, the New Zealand economy and the natural health products sector,” Dewar told the Select Committee.
Dewar said Vitaco would like to see amendments to the bill in five areas. They were:
• strengthening the bill to ensure large scale manufacturing, marketing and exporting expertise was represented on the regulatory body’s expert advisory committee;
• creating two databases for approved products – one for products intended for the New Zealand market, the other for export-only products;
• strengthening the clause relating to a code of manufacturing practice and being more specific about the definition of good manufacturing practice;
• making sure the process for the pre-approval of products approved by other regulatory regimes was timely and cost effective; and
• reducing the bill’s transition period from three to two years.
