Quality Systems

Congress is weighing in on drug pricing with a range of measures that differ in style and substance.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the United Kingdom has issued a drug alert concerning a class 2 medicines recall of paracetamol tablets.

Vida International received an FDA warning letter after an inspection found quality control violations.

The two countries have been included into the mutual recognition agreement between the European Union and the US FDA that recognizes facility inspections conducted in different territories.

Kingston Pharma LLC received a warning letter after an FDA inspection found violations of current good manufacturing practices including inadequate quality control.

Two facilities owned by Pharmasol Corporation were cited for violations of current good manufacturing practices in a FDA warning letter.

A US District Judge in the Southern District of Florida held that the US Stem Cell Clinic of Weston, FL and US Stem Cell of Sunrise, FL adulterated and misbranded a stem cell drug product made from a patient’s adipose tissue.

Although continuous approaches offer significant benefits for some products and processes, batch manufacturing is not going away any time soon.

The US Pharmacopeial Convention released new and revised standards for compounding nonsterile medicines, sterile medicines, and radiopharmaceutical drugs.

FDA’s annual manufacturing report card shows more quality compliance is needed.

CDER’s KASA program seeks manufacturer data on drug attributes and risks to inform oversight.

A good working relationship between sponsor and contractor will become invaluable when an OOS occurs, says Susan J. Schniepp, executive vice-president of post-approval pharma and distinguished fellow, Regulatory Compliance Associates.

Quality and compliance depend on the right approaches to training, standard operating procedures, and validation. More tools are available to help ensure success.

Continuous manufacturing may offer huge opportunities, but it will not be right for every facility or product.

Protecting the integrity of raw data is crucial to regulatory compliance and to proving that manufacturing and quality operations are being run and managed properly.

The company is voluntarily recalling Amikacin Sulfate Injection, USP, 1g/4 mL (250mg/mL), and Prochlorperazine Edisylate Injection, USP, 10mg/2mL (5mg/mL), to the consumer level because microbial growth was detected.

As part of its work to combat the opioid crisis, the agency is considering fixed-quantity, unit-of-use blister packaging for certain immediate-release opioid analgesics.

FDA is supporting the development and marketing of OTC therapies, including CBD products, by proposing new rules and an expanded review office and promoting digital technologies.

The company says it will work with payers to create payment options for its recently approved gene therapy, Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi), priced at $2.125 million.

The agency says Novartis drug is the first PI3K inhibitor to be approved for treating breast cancer.

Expanded controlled substance capabilities enables Particle Sciences to develop and manufacture Schedule I–V drugs.

The agency has approved Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi), the first gene therapy to treat pediatric spinal muscular atrophy.

The guidance discusses the design and evaluation of comparative analytical studies used to support the biosimilarity of a proposed therapeutic protein product to a reference product licensed under section 351(a) of the Public Health Service Act.

Violations found by FDA included a failure to test product for API identity and strength, failure to validate outsourced materials, and a lack of written cleaning procedures.

Inspectors found a lack of control over computer systems and a failure to follow equipment cleaning and maintenance procedures.