What is the Future for Pharmaceutical Compounding Companies?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may soon be cracking down on compounding pharmacies according to a recent bill introduced in the United States Legislature. The bill (Drug Quality and Security...
Critical Elements of Knowledge Management in a Pharmaceutical Quality System
The concepts detailed in ICH Q10, Pharmaceutical Quality Systems (PQS) are commonly understood and are progressively being employed in modern quality management systems. The intent of the PQS...
Why Measure and Report Quality Metrics?
A wise man recently told me that “honor and respect should be given freely, but trust is earned”. Whether it’s in politics, friendships, church, marriages, parenting or even the business world,...
Do Not Neglect GMP in your Serialization Project
In what for some may be a relatively chaotic run-up to meeting California’s 2015 serialization regulation, it is critical for serialization project managers to assure implementation falls within the...
Life Cycle Considerations for High Quality and Regulatory Compliant Software
By way of introduction I have developed, implemented, and validated computer/information systems for longer than I care to admit … they were still using punch cards to program room-sized computers...
ISO13485: Understanding the Management Review Metrics Scorecard
As discussed in part one and part two of this series, ISO13485 is a regulatory standard whose focus is meeting customer requirements, including regulatory requirements, and maintaining the...
Wondering Why You Should Evaluate the Effectiveness of Your Corporate Compliance Program?
On May 24, 2013, the Department of Justice announced that ISTA Pharmaceuticals Inc., a subsidiary of Bausch+Lomb, pled guilty to felony charges of conspiracy to introduce a misbranded drug into...
Visual Inspection for Cleanliness, What Are We Missing?
As a way to verify that your cleaning or cleaning-in-place (CIP) process was successful, what tool, assay or method should you use first? Well, shouldn’t the answer be as plain as the eyes on your...
ISO13485: Do You Know What Types of Data Should Be Evaluated at Management Review Meetings?
ISO 13485 is a regulatory standard whose focus is meeting customer requirements, including regulatory requirements, and maintaining the effectiveness of the Quality Management System (QMS). Section 5...
ISO13485: The Importance of Management Review
ISO 13485 is a regulatory standard whose focus is meeting customer requirements, including regulatory requirements, and maintaining the effectiveness of the Quality Management System (QMS). Section 5...
Calibration and Verification: Are you using these terms correctly?
No matter where I go I am always amazed at how many times the words calibration and verification are misused. I often hear statements like, “The instrument doesn’t need to be calibrated, the accuracy...
Discover New Issues Concerning Critical Process Cleaning
“Cleaning, how hard can that be,” is the sentiment of those not in the bio/pharmaceutical industry. Even for those within the industry, the general consensus regarding Cleaning and Cleaning...
Are Your SOPs "Reference-Crazy"?
While Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) are widely and rightly used to control processes, there is sometimes a tendency within organizations to go “reference crazy”. In a well-meaning attempt to...
What is Blood Plasma?
Blood Plasma, or simply plasma, is the liquid portion of blood. It has a number of vital functions in bleeding and infection control. It contains proteins and antibodies, which are produced by the...
Which Comes First, People or Systems? - Building & Maintaining Regulatory Compliance
Regulations require the pharmaceutical industry to be compliant, have and maintain a quality system, and build quality into the process (quality by design). What does that truly mean and how does the...
The Use of a Target Product Profile Early in Drug Development - A Great Program Management Tool
Let’s face it, drug development is a very long process. It is often hard for scientists in a laboratory to picture their drug actually being manufactured at large scale let alone to imagine it in a...