The Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry's recent moves to speed up the drug approval process next year already have pulses racing across the Pacific.

William Watley, head of the New Jersey Commerce and Economic Growth Commission, on Wednesday urged Japanese health and trade officials to move even faster on easing regulations on foreign pharmaceutical products.

"The sooner (regulators) move on regulatory reforms and pricing issues, the better," Watley said in a speech in Tokyo. "Our companies are being disadvantaged."

The state of New Jersey produces more than 40 percent of the global pharmaceutical output through manufacturers like Merck & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Watley said.

Currently, Japanese health officials are studying deregulation that would simplify a tedious drug approval process, for example by cutting procedures that now take five years down to two or three years.

Watley stressed that while regulators in any country don't want to approve drugs that don't work or are harmful, neither do they want to keep drugs out that can save or improve lives.

"We are not making light of the pain" that comes from job loss from a globalized economy, he said, pointing to a number of small towns in New Jersey that lost factories to global competition. "But we must not forget to explain that our economy is being fed and strengthened by international trade."