The word “quality” is bandied about with reckless abandon across the healthcare, clinical practice, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries. Everyone thinks they understand quality at a deep level, just like everyone thinks they are “better than average” drivers.
In June 2017, Canadian company PlantForm announced it was beginning construction for a pilot biologics and biosimilar manufacturing facility in Brazil. Given Brazil’s ongoing efforts to establish a local biotechnology industry, I reached out to learn more about PlantForm’s progress in navigating the regulatory landscape to bring its biosimilars closer to market.
There is no cut-and-dried approach to launching a biosimilar globally. It comes down to having the right commercial model for the right product in the right channel in the right market. But knowing what is “right” will be a particular stumbling block for many companies.
As the first of this two-part article revealed, the biosimilar market has undergone several revolutions since the release of the Thai FDA’s biosimilar guidelines in 2013. During our tour of Siam’s facilities, the company’s managing director, Songpon Deechongkit, Ph.D., shared the company’s history, overall biosimilar strategy, and some of the pros and cons of being the first and only biosimilar company in Thailand.
The word “quality” is bandied about with reckless abandon across the healthcare, clinical practice, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries. Everyone thinks they understand quality at a deep level, just like everyone thinks they are “better than average” drivers.
The biopharmaceutical industry has unique commercial risks, including complex molecule products, costly supply chain infrastructure that takes a long time to construct, and raw material variations’ impact on process quality and yields.
This two-part article on biocontainment is a companion to our discussion of potent compounds, which focused primarily on chemically derived drug substances and drug components. While analogous to chemical potent compounds, biologically derived ingredients, intermediates, and products are produced by human manipulation of naturally occurring lifeforms and their byproducts.
The genome editing market is estimated to reach $3.5 billion in 2019 — an increase from $2 billion in 2014 — with a CAGR of 13 to 14 percent.1,2 The factors driving this market include increased R&D funding for genomic research, a growing demand for synthetic genes, new technologies in genome editing, and high utilization in plant breeding. However, high regulatory stringencies, lengthy approval processes, and ethical issues associated with the fear of genetic research hamper market growth. This article examines the utilization of genome editing tools and technology and their impact across the drug discovery industry.
This article presents a new scale for measuring the risk of compound carryover in shared facilities based on the process capability of a cleaning process that can be used to evaluate the probability of cross-contamination by compounds manufactured in a shared facility or equipment train.
The Thermo Scientific™ Aegis™5-14 Film was developed specifically for liquid handling, production, storage and transportation in the biopharmaceutical industry. This film was developed as an approach to isssues regarding cleaning and sterilization of conventional multi-use containers and systems.
One way to lower the suspension viscosity of a drug is through the use of highly-concentrated crystalline suspensions, or protein crystals.
The consequences of inaccurate demand forecasting can be reputational damage, market share loss, lost days of production, destruction of inventory, and layoffs.
For many decades, it has been found that the most effective method for determining pyrogens in pharmaceutical samples, regardless of the form of the active substance, is the LAL test.
As single-use systems become more widely adopted, the focus in the bioprocessing industry is shifting from acceptance of the technology to standardization.
Manufacturers safeguard biologic materials during the development process through a set of measures commonly referred to as the “Safety Tripod.”
In May 2013 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its draft guidance, “Contract Manufacturing Arrangement for Drugs: Quality Agreements,” with recommendations representing its “current thinking on defining, establishing, and documenting the responsibilities of each party (or all parties) involved in the contract manufacturing of drugs subject to Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP). In particular, we describe how parties involved in the contract manufacturing of drugs can utilize Quality Agreements to delineate their responsibilities and assure drug quality, safety, and efficacy.”
