The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Thursday opened a public consultation on the International Council for Harmonisation’s (ICH) S12 guideline on nonclinical biodistribution (BD) considerations for gene therapies.   The S12 guideline recently reached Step 2b of the ICH process after being endorsed at the ICH Assembly virtual meeting earlier this month. (RELATED: ICH reports ‘significant milestones’ reached on guidelines ranging from impurity testing to eCTD standa...

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 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday announced it will pilot a new program it hopes will spur the development of novel drug development tools (DDTs) that do not fit within the agency’s existing DDT qualification programs.   The qualification process for DDTs was revamped under the 21 st Century Cures Act and FDA currently offers specific qualification programs for biomarkers, clinical outcome assessments (COAs) and animal models for use under the Anim...

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...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday announced it will not begin collecting drug manufacturing volume data next month as required by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).   Section 3112 of the CARES Act establishes new reporting requirements for drug manufacturers intended to improve the response to drug shortages, including expanding shortage reporting requirements for life-saving drugs to include drugs that are “critical...

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...

Feature articles during May focused on risk management and mitigation in dealing with contractors and vendors and included articles on best practices in good vendor management, use of risk management to support outsourcing activities, testing in-house versus outsourcing, and outsourcing in regulatory operations. Also included were in-depth examinations of challenges and opportunities in “bespoke” therapies, a critical appraisal of drug shortages in Germany and an update on...

This article discusses the advent of bespoke therapies, defined as the tailoring of medical treatment to the individual characteristics or symptoms and responses of a patient during all stages of care and as a new frontier beyond personalized medicine. The author covers the revolutionary genetic tools implementing such therapies and the clinical and nonclinical safety perspectives for bespoke therapies. The author concludes that with bespoke therapies we are entering a new...

This article discusses drug shortages in Germany, the root causes of production problems with active pharmaceutical ingredients, and drug product manufacturers. The authors offer analysis from the perspective of a medium-sized generic drug manufacturer. They outline a range of reasons for the shortages, all of which point to a “broken marketplace.” The authors conclude with a discussion of mitigation activities and address the current COVID-19 pandemic. They warn that drug...

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...