Maintaining quality is everyone’s job and a team effort. And when it is overlooked, bad things happen. News of a pharmaceutical company receiving an FDA Complete Response Letter and Form 483 — citing data manipulation and breaches — drove this point home recently. Based on the FDA observations made in this case, there is clear evidence that components of a voluntary quality assurance (VQA) culture were missing.
In light of BioApproval's Chris Webster’s recent publication and future presentation at the upcoming DIA Biosimilars conference, I spoke with him to learn more about the "Confirmation of Sufficient Likeness" approach and the scientific evidence that has informed this proposed biosimilar regulatory paradigm shift away from Totality of Evidence.
Because negative news and opinions seem to create greater waves, I thought I would take stock of the positive news that may not have come over your desks or (more realistically) cellphones in the past few weeks. While it’s easy to get bogged down by negative speculation, there’s progress being made and companies and experts fighting daily to keep this industry moving forward, even if it feels glacial.
Back in March, UPS and autonomous drone technology provider Matternet announced they had collectively begun delivering medical samples via unmanned drones at WakeMed’s flagship hospital and campus near Raleigh, N.C.
Though it’s only natural to expect animated scientific discussion between the FDA and USP which have long been partners-in-science, I found myself caught off-guard by just how firmly the FDA has been putting its foot down and making its thoughts known on the role certain standards — in particular, USP monographs — should (or should not play) in biologics development.
In this first of what will be a two-part article, USP's Fouad Atouf highlights the challenges presented by the FDA’s newest guidance while remaining optimistic that the large amount of data recommended today will open doors to more efficient development in the (hopefully) near future.
In accordance with the increasing emphasis on human factors as it applies to medical products and their associated written materials, the FDA recently released the draft guidance document Instructions for Use – Patient Labeling for Human Prescription Drug and Biological Products and Drug-Device and Biologic-Device Combination Products – Content and Format. Instructions for use (IFU) are a critical element of the device user interface, and special considerations must be accounted for in their design.
This article provides a road map for transport validation, which is used to qualify packaging for the entire product supply chain. When transport validation is done incompletely, poorly, or not at all, it can result in off-label drugs that are potentially harmful to patients.
With all the attention on the costs of pharmaceutical products, there is an upcoming regulatory “dead zone” that will potentially delay market entry of certain insulin products, adversely impacting insulin prices for consumers and payors. A recent Senate bill has been proposed to address this regulatory anomaly. Industry players should monitor this bill and other efforts to address the insulin dead zone, given how critical this product is to so many people.
In this two-part article, FDA Supervisory Consumer Safety Officer Dell Moller, Office of Pharmaceutical Quality Operations (OPQO) Division 3 Program Director Art Czabaniuk, and OPQO Division 3 Investigator Lindsey Schwierjohann present the agency’s top 10 drug GMP inspection citations for FY2018 and provide insight into the observations. Part 1 unveils citations #10 through #6, and Part 2 will cover citations #5 through #1.
Are the methods used for developing the current generation of biopharmaceuticals, monoclonal antibodies, hormone replacements, etc., applicable to the next generation of Cellular and gene therapies?
Project execution and project management are probably two of the topics that are most written about but least understood by the biopharmaceutical industry. This article is not about the theory of management, but it is a primer on approaches to project execution, some of which may assist the reader in understanding their path of least risk.
Every organization that is regulated by the FDA must consider sources of contamination and cross-contamination in their manufacturing operations. A robust personnel hygiene program is an important element for good manufacturing practices (GMPs) necessary to prevent contamination and cross-contamination, in order to ensure the safety of medicinal products.
Of the four critical documents that must be negotiated and executed by both sponsor and CDMO (NDA, quotation, MSA/SA, and QTA), the QTA is often the least-prioritized by the procurement team. Yet, in practice, the QTA will be the most useful for development- and clinical-stage companies, because it provides a framework for operations and a road map for building quality systems.
It is critical anyone utilizing single-use technology understands the differences between the various guidances available for extractables analysis and which testing approaches are most suited to the study goals.
Discover how through automation, it is possible to achieve data acquisition, process monitoring and control, and batch record generation, allowing more complex unit operations to be run in cGMP environments.
How ADC chemistry and manufacturing have evolved over the years, present the challenges this growth has created and describe how CDMOs are adapting to these changes to meet customer needs.
This white paper presents fundamentals about analytical SEC and describes how our new-generation agarose-based SEC columns are used in analysis of biomolecules.
This whitepaper discusses the importance of understanding how critical process parameters can impact a product’s critical quality attributes, and how a systematic approach with validated SPR assays can help in this respect.
By establishing a platform approach to process characterization, which has supported the successful approval of several marketed biologics, AbbVie scientists ensure the entire process is robust, right first time, and results in a highly consistent product to facilitate efficient BLA filing. AbbVie’s five-step process below offers a thorough understanding of the biologic and process control strategies to help accelerate time to a robust and reliable commercial scale process.
Download this free collection of articles and learn how to let go of legacy aseptic filling line equipment, seven common filling blunders and how to avoid them, nontraditional design concepts for CAR T processing, what to do when your isolator is taking too long to de-gas. Herman and Erich Bozenhardt bring a collective 54 years of bioprocess facility design and production experience to the pages of this comprehensive ebook.
