The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday issued a final guidance to assist manufacturers of biological products in determining which types of changes to their products should be submitted in an annual report and which will require a prior approval supplement, the highest reporting category.   The guidance contains minor changes from a draft issued in December 2017; no reporting changes were switched from the minor to major category. Licensed biological produ...

Members of the US House of Representatives lambasted officials of Emergent BioSolutions for ignoring serious potential contamination and cleanliness problems at their facility, causing millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to be thrown out.   The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, chaired by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) along with the House Committee on Oversight and Reform heard testimony from Robert Kramer, president and chief executive officer of Emerge...

Officials from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urged Emergent BioSolutions to stop producing vaccines until it corrects a litany of unsafe practices at the plant which compromised the quality of products. These problems were identified following a recent inspection of the plant’s facility in Baltimore.   The company was contracted by Johnson & Johnson to manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine but had to throw out 15 million doses recently due to a mix-up of ingredi...

The office tasked with overseeing pharmaceutical quality within the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) released its annual report for 2020 on Thursday, highlighting its effort in a year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.   In its previous annual report, the Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ) touted its participation in nearly one third of the preapproval inspections FDA carried out in 2019. For 2020, OPQ instead foc...

Distributors must prepare for new incoming requirements under EU medical device and in vitro diagnostic device regulations. The importance of establishing an effective quality management system, drafting comprehensive contractual agreements and, if required, engaging notified bodies, has created much uncertainty for distributors. To fulfil these new requirements and maintain device supply chains, it is essential for distributors to act early, ensure sufficient in-house com...

This article provides an overview for writing up the biological drug substance manufacturing process and process controls. The authors provide an example for the manufacturing of biological drugs consisting of a cytokine. They cover several complex manufacturing steps and details expected to be included in Section 3.2.S.2.2 (Description of Manufacturing Process and Process Controls) of the Common Technical Document (CTD) for the Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Us...

This article reviews important steps in the manufacture of biologics. The authors provide planning steps for compliance with current good manufacturing practice (CGMP) to readiness for chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC). They pose important questions manufacturers should address, from facility issues to working with a contract development manufacturing organization. They conclude that trends toward reducing the time to market put considerable stress on all aspect...

As drug and active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing moves overseas to cut costs, quality and reliability concerns have been raised and the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health met Wednesday to discuss the supply chain with one of the US Food and Drug Administration’s top officials and other experts. Janet Woodcock, director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, explained how part of the problem is that FDA does not know the...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Task Force on Drug Shortages supports the idea of creating a new rating system to help drug purchasers, including consumers, better understand the quality management of drug manufacturing facilities. “This idea envisions that pharmaceutical companies could, at their discretion, disclose the rating of the facilities where their drugs are manufactured,” Janet Woodcock, director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, w...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday finalized a question and answer guidance on the type of manufacturing facility information that should be included in applications submitted to the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. FDA explains that the guidance is meant to help companies understand how not to submit extraneous information or misplaced or missing information that could result in delays, Refu...

The Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S) is seeking comments on revisions to two parts of its GMP Guide (Annex 2A and Annex 2B) that deal with the manufacture of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) and biological medicinal substances and products for human use. PIC/S explains that draft Annex 2A accounts for international developments in the regulation of ATMPs, with particular attention to the European Commission guideline on GMP for ATMPs, whi...

Following inspections in late September, India-based generic drugmakers Lupin, Aurobindo and Cipla received Form 483s posted last week by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for observations related to cleanliness, investigations into out-of-specification results and other deficiencies. Lupin’s site in Tarapur, India was inspected over five days in late September, and the partially redacted 483 includes three observations. The first questions the company’s investi...