Welcome to our European Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top EU regulatory news. EC Appeases Some SMEs With Revised Advanced Therapy GMPs but Objections Remain The European Commission has received some favorable feedback on its draft good manufacturing practice (GMPs) guidelines for advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs). However, while small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were broadly supportive of changes proposed in the draft, the commission...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday released a warning letter sent to Spanish active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) maker Interquim, S.A. for several good manufacturing practices (GMP) violations uncovered during an inspection of the company's Barcelona facility last May. In a warning letter, FDA cites Interquim for three issues related to its cleaning procedures, deteriorated equipment surfaces and stability testing data. According to FDA, Interquim d...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia. DTAB Proposes Stipulations to Indian Plan for Permanent Licenses The Indian Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) has given its conditional support to end the need to renew licenses to make, sell and test drugs. DTAB is broadly in favor of the idea, but has suggested stipulations that are more burdensome than those proposed by the Drug Controller General of India (DCG...

The US and EU say they have made more progress on harmonizing good manufacturing practice (GMP) inspections and could reach a deal by January 2017, according to a report on the 15th round of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Progress on mutually recognizing GMP inspection has been ongoing since June , particularly as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has observed at least eight audits since 2014 and as six additional aud...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday released four warning letters sent in September to drug manufacturers from China, the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The warning letters are part of a wider crackdown by FDA on foreign drug manufacturers, particularly in China and India . Data manipulation has been a primary concern for FDA, in addition to trying to deal with manufacturers that refuse inspections . China For the warning letter sent 26 Se...

The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare (EDQM) this week announced a new agreement with Japanese authorities to share more information on the outcome of good manufacturing practice (GMP) inspections of manufacturing sites of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) of interest to both Europe and Japan. The agreement follows the exchange of letters on 13 September 2016 in which Japan’s Pharmaceutical Safety and Environmental Health Bureau of ...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia. DCGI Orders Manufacturers to Assess Their Compliance with GMPs, GLPs The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has ordered companies to self-assess their compliance with good manufacturing and laboratory practices (GMPs/GLPs). DCGI is demanding manufacturers carry out the self-assessment, award themselves a quality rating and submit the resulting report to the relev...

A statement of noncompliance released by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on Friday effectively bans in the EU medicinal products considered non-critical to public health from Pfizer's Irungattukottai, India-based site following an inspection with four regulators. Pfizer decided to temporarily suspend operations at the site earlier this month and MHRA is now calling on EU member states’ National Competent Authorities to evaluate how ...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S) on Thursday released new draft guidance and a question and answer document to help ensure that data integrity is maintained during the process of testing, manufacturing, packaging, distributing and monitoring medicines. The 44-page PIC/S draft guidance, known as “Good Practices for Data Management and Integrity in Regulated GMP/GDP Environments,” is focused on providing ind...

As part of efforts to further align the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada, both sides are working to implement a common electronic submission gateway to allow pharmaceutical companies to submit large electronic documents simultaneously to both regulators. The collaborative effort is just one of a number of joint action plans the two sides are planning as part of the Canada-US Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC), which aims to increase collaboratio...

Pfizer and Wockhardt are struggling to keep pace with pharmaceutical good manufacturing practice (GMP) regulations as two recent inspections of their manufacturing sites in India resulted in a US ban for Wockhardt and a temporary suspension of the Pfizer site. For Pfizer, the inspection of its Chennai-based site, acquired as part of its $16 billion purchase of Hospira, was a joint effort for officials from four regulators: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), UK’s...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday released a warning letter to Chinese drug manufacturer Xiamen Origin Biotech over "significant deviations" in the company's manufacturing practices for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). As imports of pharmaceuticals from China and India have increased, so has FDA's enforcement of manufacturing for companies exporting to the US. In 2015, FDA carried out 132 inspections of Chinese manufacturers, more than twi...