Quality Systems

The US Food and Drug Administration (Rockville, MD) is restructuring its Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) into two offices.

On June 15, 2006, the US Food and Drug Evaluation?s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (Rockville, MD) issued a 7-page warning letter to Ranbaxy Laboratories (Himachal Pradesh, India) for violations to US current good manufacturing practices.

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the US Food and Drug Administration (Rockville, MD), Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) released a statement this week expressing his concern over ?an agency that is adrift and floundering.?

This week, the US Food and Drug Administration (Rockville, MD) posted a Warning Letter issued May 31 by its New Jersey District Office (Parsippany, NJ) to Neil Laboratories (East Windsor, NJ) for CGMP deviations.

Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA) announced the winners of the Microsoft Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences Innovation Awards 2006 at this year?s meeting of the Drug Information Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A four-person panel of industry experts selected winners for the innovative use of Microsoft products in pharmaceutical and life sciences business processes and practices.

This week?s PharmTech Annual Event (www.pharmtechevent.com) in Somerset, New Jersey, targeted approaches to improving drug development and quality through optimizing processes, managing risk, and controlling variations in manufacturing operations.

The US Food and Drug Administration?s Counterfeit Drug Task Force (Rockville, MD, www.fda.gov) is recommending regulatory actions and the implementation of new technologies for reducing the risk of counterfeit drugs entering the United States. The group has followed up on its original 2004 report, in which it outlined the framework for protecting the public from counterfeit medicines, and an updated 2005 report with a third document encouraging electronic pedigrees, improved traceability in the drug supply chain, and the adoption of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tools.

Noting several violations in current good manufacturing practice regulations, the US Food and Drug Administration has issued a Warning Letter to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals?s (Collegville, PA) manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico.

China?s State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA, Beijing, China) issued a notice on May 18, 2006, requiring drug regulatory departments of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities to further strengthen the supervision and management of drug manufacturers.

The US Food and Drug Administration (Rockville, MD) is withdrawing seven guidance documents "because some of the principles in these guidances are inconsistent with the agency's initiative, Pharmaceutical Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMPs) for the 21st Century (CGMP Initiative) .

I always suspected that our purchasing manager had agreed to this just to save money . . .

Pharmaceutical Science & Technology News

Interphex provided an opportunity to examine the latest pharmaceutical packaging concepts and packaging machines.

ORA leadership looks to staff redeployment and risk management to ensure product quality despite diminishing resources.

The CDER and CBER have released a new "Guidance for Industry: Q8 Pharmaceutical Development," outlining what drug manufacturers should include in the Pharmaceutical Development section of International Council on Harmonization (ICH) Common Technical Document (CTD) submissions.

Spectrum Laboratory Products (Gardena, CA) recalled its active pharmaceutical ingredient, tacrolimus, after learning that some lots of the ingredient are subpotent. At least one injury has been reported.

Research and Markets (Dublin, Ireland) has released ?Annual Investment Analysis Report of the Chinese Pharmaceutical Logistics Industry, 2005-2006.? The report provides analysis of the pharmaceutical logistics characteristics, conditions, pharmaceutical market and pharmaceutical retail dynamics.

The US Food and Drug Administration (Rockville, MD) seeks volunteers to take part in a pilot project to test a Health Level 7 (HL7) data-interchange standard for submitting product stability data.

On April 28, the US Food and Drug Administration's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (Rockville, MD) issued a Warning Letter to Pliva Hrvatska d.o.o., a subsidiary of Pliva d.d. (Zagreb, Croatia).

The US Food and Drug Administration?s (Rockville, MD) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) received 637 commercial investigational new drug (IND) applications in 2005, a 20-year high.

In a May 2 Federal Register notice (1), the US Food and Drug Administration withdrew its Jan. 17 direct final rule, "Current Good Manufacturing Practice Regulation and Investigational New Drugs" (2), which would have exempted manufacturing of drugs for Phase I clinical trials from most provisions of 21 CFR 211.

Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (St. Louis, MO) has acquired Iropharm, Honeywell International's custom chemical synthesis business in Arklow, Ireland. Terms of the cash purchase were not disclosed.

China's State Food and Drug Administration prepares to strengthen the enforcement of good manufacturing practices.

Animal testing and accounting can both be hazardous.

At this year's BIO conference, US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt predicted that over the coming decade, "Medicine will be transformed from an instinctive art of alleviating symptoms to a science of personalized healthcare." Is industry ready?

Gottlieb challenges industry. First GenerationNext Awards. Implementing PAT. Optimizing site risk. RFID in the supply chain. Biodegradable polyketals. Global drug-market growth moderates.

Manufacturing and formulation innovation spurs drug develop-ment, but raises new safety and quality issues.

The author explores the importance of the proposals to revise Annex 1 of the EU GMPs in the context of the desire for science-based, internationally respected GMPs. Commentary also is provided about the relationship between this annex and CEN–ISO cleanroom standards.

On Feb. 21, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter to Wockhardt (Mumbai, India), a drug manufacturer. FDA cited the company for violations of CGMPs in the manufacture of drug products and active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The need to curb drug counterfeiting is spurring development of track-and-trace and product authentication technologies.