Why did the the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed all drug establishments that did not renew their FDA registrations for 2018 from its active registration database?

On January 2, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed all drug establishments that did not renew their FDA registrations for 2018 from its active registration database. The Agency also removed all uncertified drug product listings from publication.

FDA removed 1,256 of the 10,496 drug establishments in FDA’s database as of December 31, 2017 (12%)
FDA removed 30,786 of the 118,255 drugs listed in FDA’s database as of December 31, 2017 (26%).