Manufacturing

With counterfeiting on the rise and Europeans worried their backyard is becoming a base for such illegal activity, legislators have proposed a series of solutions that span the continent and abroad.

Getting IT, engineering, and manufacturing on the same page requires a delicate balance.

Enterprise process control and management (EPCAM) is a new strategy for healthcare manufacturers based on recent process-control breakthroughs in the electronics industry.

ISA 100.11a and WirelessHART both seek to become the global standard for industrial wireless automation.

An authoritative book helps drug developers face one of their toughest problems.

The US Food and Drug Administration announced its Pharmaceutical GMPs for the 21st Century initiative six years ago. This article reports on the outcome of a recent workshop on this topic and the action plan set forth.

The less complex nature of excipient manufacturers, as compared with API manufactures, carries many benefits.

Editors' Picks of Pharmaceutical Science & Technology Innovations

Brief pharmaceutical news items for May 2008.

Regulators face demands to improve postmarket surveillance and meet review deadlines.

INTERPHEX 2008 offered visitors novel experiences and many stimulating sessions.

WFI system deficiencies and damp tax records cause problems for two plants

According to the latest figures from IMS Health, Inc., Japan's pharmaceutical market is expected to grow 1–2% this year compared to global industry growth expectations of 5–6%.

Recent advances in SEM, particularly the incorporation of automation and software, have made simpler, lower-end SEM instruments easy to operate and have improved the capabilities of larger, sophisticated instruments.

The current trend within the pharmaceutical industry toward more efficient development, manufacturing, and specification is fueling demand for analytical tools that provide highly relevant information. Effective powder characterization has a valuable role to play.

Paul Sheskey of Dow Chemical provides an update on foam granulation technology.

The adequate absorption and transport of drugs in the body is part of optimal therapy. Drug administration perorally is easy, common and traditional, but occasionally alternative routes are required.

Inspecting punches and dies can be time-consuming and costly for tablet manufacturers. Advances in technology, however, have greatly improved in-process inspections. The author examines improvements in equipment and computer software for in-process tool inspections.

Process designs and control strategies can be improved by adopting a risk-based approach to product quality. The author describes how this approach can be applied to spray-drying operations.

When Pharmaceutical Technology Europe was established 20 years ago, PAT was not a hot topic in the industry. It was started in 2002 by FDA to modernize pharmaceutical manufacturing and increase the efficiency of manufacturing processes.

Practical guidance on how to handle validation failures cannot be found in the existing literature because they are not supposed to happen.

Traditional tablet presses do not measure tablets' tensile strength, yet this characteristic strongly influences tablet quality. The author describes a compression technique that accounts for tensile strength and produces tablets with consistent weight and disintegration time.

Congress is taking on the issue of inspection of foreign drug-manufacturing facilities as it began hearings on a discussion draft of the Food and Drug Administration Act of 2008.

Also, Genzyme to build R&D center in Beijing, Noven Pharmaceuticals appoints Peter C. Brandt president and CEO, more...