Articles by Mark F. Witcher

11. Principles And Concepts Of System Risk Structures For Understanding & Managing Risks 12/6/2021

    A truly effective risk analysis method for the biopharma industry should provide insights to and understanding of the fundamental properties and attributes that underlie every type of risk. This article describes how system risk structures (SRS) can be used to understand and manage both simple risk situations as well as complex risk landscapes quickly and efficiently.

12. FMEA Vs. System Risk Structures (SRS): Which Is More Useful? 9/24/2021

    In this article, Mark Witcher, Ph.D., discusses the many failure modes of FMEA and risk priority number (RPN), comparing and contrasting it with system risk structures (SRS) and adjusted risk likelihood (RPN). He concludes that one of these is more useful than the other for pharma and medical devices; which one is it?

13. Using System Risk Structures To Understand And Balance Risk/Benefit Trade-offs 4/23/2021

    The ICH 31000 guidance defines a risk as the “impact of uncertainty on objectives.” As a follow-up to his article on why we should replace the RPN with the adjusted risk likelihood (ARL), Mark Witcher describes how system risk structures can be used to simultaneously understand and manage both risks and benefits. 

14. Rating Risk Events: Why Adjusted Risk Likelihood (ARL) Should Replace Risk Priority Number (RPN) 4/7/2021

    While the RPN primarily represents a risk event’s severity, perhaps a more important attribute to focus on is the risk event’s likelihood of occurrence. In this provocative article, Mark Witcher, Ph.D., proposes an adjusted risk likelihood rating approach that emphasizes a risk event’s likelihood of occurrence.

15. Revising Annex 1: A Case Study In Controlling Operating Risks By Understanding Uncertainty 11/13/2020

    Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry does not understand how to control a risk’s likelihood of occurrence. The current draft of EU GMP Annex 1 is an example of the industry’s focus on a risk’s severity while not understanding or evaluating a risk’s uncertainty and thus defaulting to using the precautionary principle for guidance.

16. Can We Eradicate Tech Transfer? 9/23/2020

    While warp-speed manufacturing is a pandemic term, the concept is important to the FDA’s 21st century vision of “a maximally efficient, agile, flexible pharmaceutical manufacturing sector that reliably produces high-quality drugs without extensive oversight.” Reaching 21st century performance requires replacing many 20th century practices.

17. A Functional History Of Process Validation: Part 2 – The Key To A More Effective Future 8/14/2020

    Part 1 of this two-part series discussed the history and underlying concepts of process validation (PV), which is required for dealing with the increasingly sophisticated pharmaceutical manufacturing processes necessary for realizing advanced medical therapies. This article describes how PV concepts can be evolved so the industry can better develop, manufacture, and launch the next generations of biopharmaceutical products.

18. A Functional History Of Process Validation, Part 1 – A Weak Foundation 8/7/2020

    This article is the first of a two-part series that describes the origins of process validation to explain the underlying concepts necessary to control the advanced bioprocess manufacturing technologies required to make the next generations of biopharmaceutical therapies.

19. System Risk Structures: A New Framework For Avoiding Disaster 7/13/2020

    Risks are ubiquitous, occurring in every aspect of our personal and professional lives. This article describes how pharmaceutical development and manufacturing risks can be easily understood and effectively managed using straightforward concepts.

20. What Managing Personal SARS-CoV-2 Risks Can Teach Us About Managing Pharma Risks 6/12/2020

    This article describes how the basic principles of managing personal risks of being infected by a respiratory virus can be used to manage risks for developing and manufacturing pharmaceuticals. The goal is to elucidate the basic principles of understanding, managing, and communicating a wide variety of risks from the trivially simple to the very complex.