Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine expands international standardization gains

The Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine announced Tuesday that five international standards under development with Korean participation have been confirmed to advance to the next development stage, and that Korea will co-lead the development of three new international standards.

The confirmations came at the first general assembly of the year of ISO/TC 249/SC 1, the subcommittee on Korean medicine under the International Organization for Standardization's technical committee on traditional medicine.

The five standards advancing to the next stage cover: strengthening reliability criteria for identifying herbal medicines through genetic analysis; establishing global production process standards for single-use acupotomy needles to ease export licensing procedures; incorporating domestic regulations into medical device licensing for tongue diagnosis instruments; setting market standards for acupoint electroceuticals; and developing international standards in Korean medicine and digital healthcare, including pulse diagnostic data.

The institute said the outcomes are significant in that they expand the foundation for reflecting domestic technology and research results in Korean herbal medicine quality control, Korean medical devices and digital healthcare in international standards.

Korea also agreed to serve as co-project leader for three new international standard proposals put forward by China.

Through the co-leadership role, Korea will participate directly in establishing quality and safety standards for herbal medicines that are widely used and distributed domestically. The arrangement secures a basis for incorporating domestic industry input into the international standards development process and for raising quality benchmarks for herbal medicines.

Meanwhile, a proposal to include hanja characters — along with pinyin romanization — in international standards documents was discussed at the assembly but was tabled following objections raised by Korean experts.

During deliberations, Korean experts voiced opposition, expressing concern that adding characters from a specific language could hinder the universal comprehension of international standards and their consistent application across member countries, while also calling for adherence to ISO's principles for drafting standards.

As the matter concerns the fundamental principles governing how international standards documents are written, continued engagement on the issue is expected going forward.