BioPharm International Editors

Excellence United, an alliance of six specialty equipment companies, will make its first North American appearance at INTERPHEX 2012, held May 1–3 at the Javits Center in New York.

On Feb. 21, 2012, FDA announced steps the agency plans to take to increase the declining supply of certain cancer drugs. These steps came in response to President Obama?s Oct. 31, 2011 Executive Order.

President Barack Obama released his budget proposal for fiscal year 2013. Included in the proposed budget is a $654-million increase in FDA funding, for a total FDA budget request of $4.49 billion

On Jan. 13, 2012, FDA announced it had completed, and transmitted to Congress, its recommendations for three user fee programs including the fifth authorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) and programs for human generic drugs and biosimilar biological products.

Novartis Consumer Health has announced a voluntary recall of all lots of select, bottle-packaged configurations of Excedrin, NoDoz, Bufferin and Gas-X Prevention.

On Dec. 29, 2011, FDA approved the TIRF REMS Access Program, a single-shared risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) for transmucosal immediate-release fentanyl (TIRF) products, narcotic pain medicines used by cancer patients to manage pain.

On Dec. 21, 2011, Ranbaxy Laboratories signed a consent decree with FDA and pledged that it would strengthen procedures and policies to ensure data integrity and to comply with current good manufacturing practices. The agreement is subject to approval by the US District Court for the District of Maryland.

Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) entered into separate agreements with the GAVI Alliance to supply pneumococcal vaccines to developing countries. Pneumococcal disease can lead to pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis and is one of the leading causes of death in children under the age of five in developing countries.

On Dec. 22, 2011, Baxter International and Momenta Pharmaceuticals entered into a global collaboration to develop and commercialize follow-on biologic products. Baxter will contribute its clinical-development and biologic-manufacturing expertise, experience with sterile injectables, and global commercial capabilities to the collaboration. Momenta will bring its expertise in high-resolution analytics, characterization, and product and process development to the joint effort.

In a Warning Letter, FDA cited ?significant violations? of CGMP regulations, including several repeat observations, at three Novartis facilities. The violations included failure to prevent microbiological contamination of sterile drug products, failure to investigate out-of-specification batches, failure to clean and maintain equipment, and failure to ensure drugs? identity, strength, quality, and purity.

The FDA and EMA are moving from "confidence-building to reliance upon" each other in a step-up in cooperation on GMP inspections; the latest move following successful completion of pilot projects this summer. The initiative will begin in January 2012, according to a jointly issued press release on Dec. 9, 2011, and will enable the two authorities to rely on each other's inspections outcomes instead of conducting inspections in duplicate

On Dec. 1, 2011, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Foundation awarded Johns Hopkins University and the University of Washington each a $250,000 grant to establish a three-year graduate certificate program.

In an initiative that could signal a new era in private?public partnerships, AstraZeneca will make 22 compounds available for free to medical researchers next year for projects funded by the United Kingdom?s (UK) Medical Research Council (MRC).

On Nov. 21, 2011, Gilead Sciences agreed to acquire Pharmasset for $137 per share in cash, or a total of approximately $11 billion. Pharmasset’s board of directors unanimously approved the transaction, which is expected to close during the first quarter of 2012. Gilead will finance the transaction with cash, bank debt, and senior unsecured notes.

The EMA released a concept paper for consultation on Nov. 8, 2011, that recommends a revision to Annex 16 of the Guide to Good Manufacturing of Medicinal Products to address more complicated global supply chains and new falsified medicines legislation. Since Annex 16 was introduced in 2001, a number of positive and negative trends have occurred in the pharmaceutical industry. In particular, confusion has arisen over the role of the qualified person (QP), and harmonization of requirements has been lost between member states. The EMA cites several commonly asked questions within the concept paper:

At a press conference held Nov. 10, 2011, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the agency had approved 35 novel medicines in fiscal year 2011. Among the approved products were two drugs for late-stage metastatic melanoma and the first drug to treat Hodgkins lymphoma in 30 years. Other approvals included drugs to treat late-stage prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, metastatic breast cancer, and late-stage lung cancer.

On Sept. 27, 2011, FDA sent Genentech a Form 483 listing several violations at the company?s South San Francisco, California, plant. The violations included problems with investigations into batch failures, inappropriate equipment design, and insufficient protection against contamination. FDA visited the plant, which produces the cancer drug Avastin, 13 times in September 2011 and made four observations.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) launched a public consultation on the consolidation of United Kingdom (UK) medicines legislation on Oct. 26, 2011.

On Oct. 26, 2011, FDA dedicated $2 million to support two regional Centers of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI). The centers, which will be located at the University of Maryland and at Georgetown University, will focus on the scientific knowledge and training needed to modernize and improve the ways the agency reviews and evaluates drugs and medical devices.

Last week, Abbott unveiled a plan to separate into two publicly traded companies, one focusing on diversified medical products and the other on research-based pharmaceuticals.

Last week, FDA awarded a grant to the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology and Education (NIPTE) to improve drug development and manufacturing. The grant could be worth as much as $35 million over the next five years. Using the grant, NIPTE will conduct research in various areas, including methods for reducing time to market, enabling new performance attributes in drugs, improving small-batch production, and promoting continuous manufacturing.

After announcing the official appointment of Guido Rasi as new executive director, the EMA management board also endorsed the implementation plan for the agency?s ?Road map to 2015? in a press statement released Oct. 7, 2011.

FDA may consider whether to add specific search criteria (e.g., those that would enable product-specific or violation-specific searches) to its inspections database to make it user-friendly and improve data analysis. The idea was included in a list of eight draft proposals for increasing transparency that the agency published on Oct. 3, 2011.

EMA released two concept papers for consultation that address the need to revise existing guidelines on biosimilar medicines and influenza vaccines.

Last week, FDA published a guidance titled Marketed Unapproved Drugs?Compliance Policy Guide, which describes the agency?s enforcement priorities with regard to products that lack regulatory approval or that are not marketed in accordance with the over-the-counter (OTC) drug review. The document is a revision of the June 2006 guidance of the same name

The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) will soon publish an update for its guide to sterile-product manufacturing facilities. The new publication will replace the original guide, ISPE Baseline Guide: Sterile-Product Manufacturing Facilities, and contain practical information about technological advances in sterile manufacturing.

The UK?s Technology Strategy Board has partnered with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to invest as mush as £9 million ($14.2 million) in grant funding with the aim of bringing proof-of-concept ideas to pilot technology demonstration for healthcare.

EMA announced in a press release that a new version of the validation criteria for electronic applications for human medicines comes into effect on Sept. 1, 2011. The new criteria (version 3.1) have been agreed with the regulatory authorities in European Union member states and will be applied to all electronic common technical document (eCTD) sequences received starting September 1.

EMA has concluded in a recent report that a pilot program investigating the mutual benefits of joint international inspections of API manufacturing facilities has been a success. The collaboration between the EMA, a number of European member states, FDA, and Australia?s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) sought to increase international regulatory information-sharing to enhance global drug quality and safety by building on API GMP standards.

Last week, the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) published a guidance document titled ISPE Good Practice Guide: Process Gases. The guide defines current best practices in pharmaceutical manufacturing applications for handling gases that come into direct contact with the biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical process steams (e.g., nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, and compressed air).