The pharmaceutical industry has benefited from high margins and low competition for decades. While the vast majority of engineering effort is directed toward compliance with new regulations and industry best practices, operational efficiency often remains a lower priority item for packaging departments in the life sciences industry.
The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) enacted in 2010 provides two abbreviated approval pathways for biological products (follow-on biologics). Developers of biologics can seek designation of their follow-on product as biosimilar to, or interchangeable with, a reference biological product approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Process characterization is the foundation for process validation activities. Too often, validation activities fail due to the lack of process characterization using sound statistical and scientific methods, including design of experiments (DOE).
Regardless of the maturity of an organization’s data integrity practices, the people component remains the greatest risk. The important thing for individual contributors, operational managers, and executive leaders to remember is that data integrity evolves.
There are many ways to tackle pharmaceutical facility design, engineering, building, and production, and each plant has its own methods and culture. However, there are situations we have come across where we really scratch our heads and say, “What did they just do, and what were they thinking?” This article describes a series of events or activities that we have seen and, while they are amusing or baffling, they reveal the flaws in our industry.
There is a growing industry focus on standard operating procedure (SOP) remediation. Although outsourcing, mergers, and acquisitions have been in play for the last 20 years, these activities seem to be skyrocketing, which is creating quite a few scenarios that drive the need for SOP remediation.
More than 13 years ago, Omnitrope (somatropin) received its approval in Europe on April 14, 2006. Since then, as of June 2019, 57 biosimilars from 15 different molecules have received greenlights, 27 of them in the last five years and 16 in the last year and a half. This acceleration is driven by the increasing need to generate savings that help keep pharmaceutical budgets under control. According to data from the consulting firm Fiercepharma, drugs approved in 2019 will generate sales of more than $20 billion in 2024.
Does the pharmaceutical industry want to sit on the sidelines while its products are being manipulated and modified — a danger? Or will the industry provide its products in a manner or with the tools that will enable compounding pharmacies to succeed in delivering a safe and effective drug to the patient — an opportunity?
Qualified Persons (QPs) are responsible for the certification of clinical trial materials in the EU and therefore are an essential link in U.S. sponsors’ supply chains. Indeed, engaging QPs well before the clinical trial material needs to be certified not only assures a smooth release process and trial start-up but mitigates pitfalls associated with unanticipated technical, quality, and regulatory challenges.
Pharmaceutical quality by design (QbD) and quality risk management (QRM) principles have become mainstays in pharmaceutical development. However, several myths are prevalent that prevent wider acceptance of the concepts by smaller firms. The lack of understanding of pertinent quality by design methods prevents smaller firms from benefiting from the majority of what QbD offers.
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