The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ) reported that progress has been made over the past year in advancing its quality management maturity initiative and in its quality assessment review process in its 2022 annual report.   The report also describes progress made in other areas under OPQ’s remit. The office’s previous two reports focused largely on its COVID-19 response. (RELATED:  FDA’s OPQ reports on drug quality efforts ...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) should brief pilot participants ahead of the actual assessments and use a simplified rubric for scoring or rating a manufacturers quality management maturity (QMM) program. These were some of the lessons learned as the agency develops a future rating program for evaluating manufacturers on drug quality, according to results reported in a 10 January article published in The AAPS Journal .   These pilots “afforded FDA the opp...

In its simplest form, strategy can be considered bringing a new product to market, but it touches every product development lifecycle aspect and can ensure market sustainability. A limited or inadequate strategy can challenge global expansion, thus emphasizing the importance of a well-designed and executed regulatory strategy. This article identifies the requirements for developing a strategy for a drug development plan, as well as postmarketing strategy, with some global ...

The five process groups of a process-based approach to project management are: Initiate, Plan, Execute, Monitor and Control, and Close, according to PMBOK. This article presents opportunities for using a project management framework when strategizing for CMC regulatory submission projects. The authors discuss PMBOK nomenclature, project performance domains, project constraints, process groups, examples of scenarios that may be encountered during a submission project, and t...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) draft guidance on risk management plans (RMPs) has overstepped the agency’s statutory bounds in requiring manufacturers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) as well as prescription drug manufacturers to submit risk management plans (RMPs) to avert drug shortages.   This requirement could impose the very drug shortages it is designed to prevent, instead of just targeting those products at risk of drug shortage, pharmace...

The FDA’s Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR) proposal, paired with the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 13485:2016, is expected to deliver cost savings to medtech organizations that adhere to both requirements. This article covers the differences between QMSR, ISO 13485:2016, and the Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) so leaders can prepare for the upcoming changes.    Keywords – MDSAP, quality management, quality system regulat...

The Japanese regulatory system has been recognized as one of the most sophisticated and stringent regulatory systems in the world. The regulatory policies are developed and administered by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) executes the policies, and certain authorities are delegated to local governments. Over the last 6 decades, the Japanese regulator has faced many challenges but has kept enhancing the...

This article examines the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) return to inspections that were put on hold during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It outlines the agency’s oversight of drug and biological products during the pandemic and its plans moving forward. The authors summarize the agency’s guidance and policies, industry considerations, and recommendations to manufacturers preparing for their next FDA inspection.   Keywords FDA, inspections, quality, risk m...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued draft guidance that spells out which types of drugs and medical devices are vulnerable to shortages and should be subject to risk management plan (RMP) reporting. The guidance also recommends risk factors to consider when developing the content of the RMPs.     Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), FDA was given new authorities to collect information from manufacturers in respond...

The proposed revisions of the International Council of Harmonization’s (ICH) Q9 (R1) guideline on risk management should be better aligned with medical device quality risk standards as well as international standards. Further, a firm’s information technology (IT) program should be subject to the same level of risk controls as other areas within an organization, representatives of the pharmaceutical industry said in their comments on the update.   The European Medicin...

Quality by design, or the principle of building quality into a product and testing, was introduced in 2011 as process validation guidance. Today it is codified within the Title 21 section 820. The quality management system (QMS) encompasses this principle in all areas of healthcare manufacturing – including drugs, biologics, and devices – and, with compliance, can ensure the safety and effectiveness of all manufactured products. The establishment, implementation, and maint...

Introduction A quality management system (QMS) is one of the five medical device conformity assessment elements. 1 Manufacturers of medical devices are expected to implement, document, and maintain a QMS that “ensures the medical devices it designs, manufactures, and supplies to the market are safe, perform as intended, and comply with the relevant provisions of the regulations in the countries where the product is made available.” 2   Today, a QMS is seen as a ...