The Life Sciences cold chain is a seamless and interconnected global network of people, equipment, data and processes that helps to ensure the safety and integrity of our medicines and vaccines. Cold chain logistics spending totaled $13 billion in 2017, an investment designed to protect some $283 billion in Life Sciences cold chain products, growing at 19% annually.1 Sensitech Inc., a part of UTC Climate, Controls & Security, a unit of United Technology Corp., has played an essential part in the Life Sciences cold chain since 1990, providing a comprehensive set of solutions for manufacturers of biologics, prescription pharmaceuticals, clinical trial materials, and over-the-counter drugs. These solutions help to ensure product quality, patient safety, and regulatory compliance while helping to prevent theft and optimizing cold chain performance.
1. Introduction
As part of the development of any biopharmaceutical product, the impurities present must be examined, minimized and where possible characterized (1). These impurities fall into two broad categories: product-related impurities (derived specifically from the drug product itself) and process-related impurities (derived from material associated with the production, processing or purification of the sample). Host cell proteins (HCPs) are process-related impurities that require specific analysis due to the multitude of naturally occurring proteins expressed in the production cell line.
Quantitative NMR (qNMR) is a technique that is being applied broadly and at an increasing rate in the field of pharmaceutical analysis (1). This white paper highlights the advantages of using qNMR to determine Relative Response Factors (RRFs) for pharmaceutical impurities detectable by HPLC. A single determination of RRFs using qNMR allows for simple and accurate quantitation of impurities which eliminates the need for preparation, qualification, and storage of reference standards. An example is presented here, which demonstrates quantitation of known impurities that have variable responses to UV-VIS detection, thereby providing a more accurate assessment of impurity levels than UV-VIS response alone.
The role of the Qualified Person (QP) in the pharmaceutical industry is mandated by law (Directive 2001/83/EC, Directive 2001/20/EC, UK SI 2012/1916, UK SI 2004/103). Every holder of a relevant Manufacturers Authorisation (human and veterinary) must have at least one QP; without one, no batch of medicinal product can be certified for release for sale.
Monoclonal antibodies are an important class of biopharmaceuticals. They are expressed from living cells and therefore, are subject to complex biochemical pathways. Not all of these pathways are fully understood and many are known to be sensitive to subtle environmental changes during production. These changes may affect the final biopharmaceutical sequence, structure and post-translational modifications. This is in addition to any changes that may occur during subsequent purification. This means that the final product from one batch may be subtly different from another batch. Furthermore, each batch is a heterogeneous mix of similar molecules. Analysis of the degree of batch-tobatch variation, and batch heterogeneity, is therefore, very important to establish in order to be confident that the drug is safe and effective for medicinal use.
In an industry that is seeing an increasing level of work being outsourced, the Contract Research Organisation (CRO) of choice needs to have proven experience in both the pragmatism and flexibility of the method developer’s mind set and a regulatory background in validation.
As companies are focussing on achieving ever shorter times of drug to market, it is vital that a tailored, pragmatic approach is adopted when engaging in both method development and validation activities for an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) or drug product (DP).
Although methods still require a high degree of robustness, the overall strategy should encompass a full evaluation of the regulatory requirements applicable to the particular phase of the drug life-cycle; this is pivotal in Key to Outsourcing Method Development and Validation A Pragmatic Approach order to ensure a successful regulatory submission, where the applicant must demonstrate suitable validation of all methods used to support the filing.
Pharmaceutical products are in contact with many external components during both manufacture and usage and small amounts of chemicals may leach from these components with a potential health risk to the patient. Extractables and leachables (E&L) studies therefore play an important role in verifying the safety of a drug product over its lifetime.
Regulatory organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) are taking an increased interest in the interactions of various drug delivery devices, pharmaceutical product containers and medical devices with drug product and/or patient and this field is therefore growing in importance.
Regulatory guidelines indicate that an extractables profile should be determined for all materials that contact the drug product. Once established, this profile can be used to determine whether any of these extractables are present as leachables within the product. If a leachable is detected, amounts can be determined using validated analytical methods, after which a biological risk can be established based on the exposure.
This white paper will provide an overview of the processes used to determine extractables and leachables from plastics.
Cross contamination must be avoided in the Pharmaceutical industry at all costs and successful cleaning validation ensures that patients are not put at risk due to cross contamination.
The process can be divided into a number of sections each of which must be fully understood and areas of concern addressed to ensure a successful outcome across the entire process. This spans both the manufacturing and subsequent analytical and microbological support.
The data used to confirm a positive/successful cleaning validation is underpinned by the results of validated analytical methods. It is essential that these results are truly representative as patient safety is based upon the absence of equipment residues.
So what are those areas of concern, what affects your ability to get a successful outcome and what do you need to consider when carrying out a Cleaning Validation exercise?
The development and validation of suitable analytical methods is a critical part of the overall drug-development life-cycle. For the majority of products, particularly those that are clinically successful, the transfer of the analytical method between laboratories will be required. This process is designed to verify that a given laboratory is capable of performing a test method for its intended purpose. This can be performed either internally (at the same company), or, with the on-going increasing trend in outsourcing, to an external Contract Research or Development organisation (CRO or CDO).
With upcoming changes, including the implementation of the International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH) E2B(R3) Electronic Transmission of Individual Case Safety Report and Identification of Medicinal Products (IDMP) standards, the current state of safety reporting can be confusing. Your existing safety system may not be flexible enough to accommodate these changing regulations, which are still moving targets regarding the details needed for a comprehensive solution with the right level of processes, company-to-company integrations and finalized regional rules.
Protagen Protein Services expands analytical Service Spectrum in Biosimilar Development Support
Heilbronn/Dortmund February 2019: The success or failure of the development of a biopharmaceutical product is also governed by protein stability. Protein stability is considered a critical parameter during manufacturing, production, formulation, long term storage, efficacy, and delivery to patients.
To meet our customer demands now and in the future, PPS always invests in new analytical technique and recently added a new Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) device.
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Challenges of Analytical Method Transfer in the Pharmaceutical Industry
RSSL
The development and validation of suitable analytical methods is a critical part of the overall drug-development life-cycle. For the majority of products, particularly those that are clinically successful, the transfer of the analytical method between laboratories will be required. This process is designed to verify that a given laboratory is capable of performing a test method for its intended purpose. This can be performed either internally (at the same company), or, with the on-going increasing trend in outsourcing, to an external Contract Research or Development organisation (CRO or CDO).
More info >>
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