As part of its work to improve and modernize the quality assessment of drug applications, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is developing a new, more standardized system, to be known as the Knowledge-aided Assessment & Structured Application (KASA), according to an article authored by officials from FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Pharmaceutics . The authors describe KASA as a new s...

Following a five-day inspection last month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a Form 483 to active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturer Shilpa Medicare Limited after the agency uncovered long-lasting power failures at the site. “During the walkthrough on 24 July 2019, three power failures occurred within the facility during a 15-minute interval and a back-up generator did not resume power,” FDA investigator Yvins Dezan wrote. And while reviewing aud...

The UK’s Medicines and Health care products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on Tuesday opened a three-month public consultation on its plans to apply analytical quality by design (AQbD) principles to its pharmacopoeial standards.   “Quality by Design (QbD) is a systematic approach to development that begins with predefined objectives and emphasises product and process understanding and process control, based on sound science and quality risk management,” MHRA writes.   Th...

In a report released Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ) provides a look at the pharmaceutical quality landscape for drugs and biologics intended for the US market.   The report itself breaks down different metrics related to product quality and manufacturer compliance with current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) to paint a picture of the overall pharmaceutical quality landscape.   While FDA reports an overa...

Ahead of the proposed shift away from the current US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quality management system (QMS) CFR 21 Part 820 regulation toward ISO 13485:2016, a new white paper sheds light on how the action will impact medical device development. The white paper identified three interrelated principles that will define the direction of the agency’s process, which has yet to be clearly defined, after the transition . These principles relate to the concept of ...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare (EDQM) on Thursday released a report detailing findings from EMA’s drug sampling and testing program over the last 20 years.   EMA says it plans to extend the program to include biosimilars and that it will expand the generic sampling and testing program first launched in 2011 to include products authorized via the mutual recognition and decentralized procedures. ...

The internationally harmonized guideline for a risk-based approach on assessing and controlling elemental impurities in drug products entered the final implementation phase. ICH Q3D(R1) Guideline for Elemental Impurities, developed via the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH), reached the fourth out of five steps in ICH’s process of regulatory harmonization last week, moving toward implementation of the revised guideline. The guideline was first recommended for...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week sent warning letters to Pfizer’s subsidiary Hospira and Jubilant Life Sciences over good manufacturing practice (GMP) violations at the companies’ facilities in India.   Pfizer   In its warning letter to Pfizer, FDA says that products made at its Hospira facility in Tamil Nadu, India are adulterated as a result of data integrity breaches and laboratory testing shortcomings observed during a week-long inspection la...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday announced it will go ahead with a survey of healthcare professionals (HCPs) on how they are impacted by prescription drug promotion aimed at a professional audience.   The announcement comes after the agency consulted on its plans for  the survey in March 2018 and follows two earlier surveys that looked at HCPs’ attitudes toward direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. The survey will also include questions about HCPs’...

The World Health Organization (WHO) in January released for consultation a draft of its upcoming guideline on implementing quality management systems (QMS) for national regulatory authorities (NRAs).   Specifically, the 96-page draft guideline is meant to fill the gaps for NRAs looking to implement a QMS based on the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems – Requirements standard, as other existing QMS guidelines do n...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month warned Vilvet Pharmaceuticals over good manufacturing practice (GMP) issues and for failing to list two of its products with the agency.   The warning letter comes after a 10-day inspection of Vilvet’s Chester Springs, PA facility in June 2018.   According to FDA, Vilvet failed to establish and follow adequate quality control practices, including failing to review batches of drugs made by a contract manufacturer....

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ) on Thursday released its 2018 annual report touting its accomplishments in a year that saw record numbers of new and generic drug approvals.   OPQ is the office responsible for quality assessments for investigational new drug applications (INDs) and all marketing applications reviewed by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), including new drug applications (NDAs), abbreviat...