Quality/GMPs

Mass serialization, or the ability to store a unique serial number for each item, is the most useful feature of RFID tags.

Even if some clinical testing is needed, generics makers argue that no one-size-fits-all testing approach is appropriate for the broad range of biopharmaceutical complexities.

Biotechnology and life sciences companies come in all shapes and sizes. Some are multinational companies with vast resources and others are small companies working with a few new compounds. Regardless of size or market position, these companies should all have one common question of those that handle their insurance: Will their current insurance program protect their assets and investments in the event of a significant loss? Understanding the nature of risks, acquiring suitable insurance, and comprehending policy issues when claims arise are essential to protecting assets and obtaining reimbursement when losses occur.

With biotech valuations at the lowest point in years, the resulting investment opportunities are multiplying - seemingly by the hour.

Creation and qualification of scale-down models is essential for performing several critical activities that support process validation and commercial manufacturing. This combined article is the fifth in the "Elements of Biopharmaceutical Production" series. Part 1 (March 2005) covered fermentation. In this segment, we present some guidelines and examples for scale-down of common downstream unit operations used in biotech processes - chromatography and filtration.

When you don't know the answer to a question, ask an expert. If the question is really big, ask more experts. If you have a collection of difficult questions, run a poll of many experts. That, in effect, was the impetus for Eden Biodesign to survey 670 BioPharm International subscribers with questions as to what will be the development mechanism to achieve safe, effective, and cheap new medicines.

Out-licensing has become a crucial part of most biotech companies' business strategies.

This was the week for awards. The Academy Awards, which honored the film industry, captured the eye of millions worldwide. They were followed midweek by The Fourth Annual Top 25 Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Marketers of the Year Awards. Sponsored by USA TODAY and DTC Perspectives magazine, these awards celebrated the accomplishments of 2004's most talented DTC pharmaceutical marketers.

Analytical method validation (AMV) is required in the biopharmaceutical industry for all methods used to test final containers (release and stability testing), raw materials, in-process materials, and excipients. 1 AMV is also required for test methods that are used to validate the process prior to process validation. This article reviews current regulatory guidelines and the critical elements of analytical method development (AMD) that should be finalized before starting AMV.

Synthetic drugs can be well characterized by established analytical methods. Biologics on the other hand are complex, high-molecular-weight products, and analytical methods have limited abilities to completely characterize them and their impurity profiles. Regulation of biologics includes not only final product characterization but also characterization and controls on raw materials and the manufacturing process.

The BioPharma Operations Excellence Consortium, facilitated by Tefen Operations Management Consulting, continues to thrive, recently holding chapter meetings on two separate continents. The US East Coast Chapter met at Centocor's headquarters in Malvern, PA, while the European Chapter met at Sorono's facility in Vevey, Switzerland. Since its establishment in early 2002, over 45 leading biopharmaceutical companies have joined the forum, which operates on the basis of using the group's collective knowledge to drive each member company - and the industry as a whole - to world-class levels of operational effectiveness and efficiency.

Many types of equipment in both manufacturing and laboratory areas are critical to a properly functioning pharmaceutical process. The validation of laboratory equipment is not as clearly defined as the validation of equipment used directly in the production of pharmaceutical products, which requires thorough validation in almost all situations.

Bioterrorism legislation is in the works, but there will be a tough fight to enact added liability protections for manufacturers.

RARM procedures don't exist in a vacuum. For people to perform effective and useful RARMs, the process needs to be integrated with other GMP quality system elements and be proceduralized.

Pharmaceutical companies today are faced with increased costs for drug discovery and development and aggressive competition from generic drug companies. As research costs skyrocket, generic drug companies sit poised and ready to compete as soon as a patent expires.

There are challenges aplenty in purification and analysis of PEGylated protein pharmaceuticals. Here are a variety of technical solutions, many concentrating on the chemistry of the linker.

The variety of microbiological tests makes it difficult, if not impossible, to prescribe a single, comprehensive method for validating all types of tests. By their very nature, microbiological tests possess properties that make them different from chemical tests. Consequently, the well-known procedures for validating chemical tests are not appropriate for many microbiological tests. Yet, it is necessary to validate microbiological tests if they are to be useful for controlling the quality of drug products and devices. Test-method validation provides assurance that a method is suitable for its intended use. Given this definition, any rational company would want to be sure that its methods are validated.

Revisiting simple, robust, and controllable technology is the only way to overcome these challenges.

Lot-to-lot variations between raw materials can greatly impact process performance.

A tepid currency picture may cause biopharm companies to put the breaks on initiatives in places like information systems, research and development, and even hiring.

The purpose of design validation is to demonstrate that a product performs as intended. The usual route to this goal is showing that every item on the specification has been achieved, but it is not an easy path. The specification itself can create difficulty if it includes statements like "as long as possible" or the real horror "to be decided." Verification tests can reveal so many problems that the design must change to such an extent that earlier tests are no longer relevant. And there is also the practical difficulty of obtaining sufficient samples to test when the manufacturing engineers have not completed their standard operating procedures, the product design is not fixed yet, the component suppliers are late, and the marketing department has taken all the samples to show to prospective customers.

Organizations can mitigate the risk of failure during regulatory inspections by identifying and correcting deficiencies before an inspection occurs.

In most production environments, it is critical to be able to associate historical environmental data with process data.

One of the critical early tasks of the documentation team is coordinating plans and requirements with the start-up team.

The growing alarm over harmful side effects from a number of popular prescription drugs is affecting a range of issues of critical importance for pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers. Safety concerns may slow down efforts to expand drug importation from foreign nations. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has halted important clinical trials due to fear that the painkillers under study increase risk for cardiovascular events.

I wrote in the December 2005 issue of Streetalk that no matter who won the election between George Bush and John Kerry, the result would have been good news to the biopharm industry - if for different reasons. I said that with President Bush back in office for a second term, industry red tape would be diminished and the life sciences sector would shift into higher gear.

In the first part of this feature (Jan. 2005) we discussed the technical background and the role that FDA, US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) play in setting the rules for accepting plant-made biopharmaceuticals (PMBs). We now continue by discussing how producers will be able to take products to market.

Unfortunately, once circuits are commissioned and validated, optimizing - or even adjusting - them is difficult and rarely done because of the time and effort required for revalidation.

The bulk of a biopharmaceutical processing unit can be assembled with off-the-shelf components. However, special fabrications — especially fluid components — enable fabricators and manufacturers to meet critical construction deadlines and move projects forward with minimal or no delays.

The drive to develop better, faster, and smaller - in other words, more efficient - products is a universal trend in the modern world. This trend has profoundly impacted many industries from microelectronics to packaging equipment. In the biopharmaceutical industry, the need to speed and simplify the long and complex drug manufacturing processes brings additional challenges, such as meeting regulatory requirements.