Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

pharmaceutical manufacturingQ: I work for a contract manufacturing organization (CMO) and our pharmaceutical manufacturing team has dedicated capital funds to update some of our manufacturing lines. I need to work with my clients to get approval to make the necessary changes. Many of my clients feel any changes to the manufacturing line would require a prior approval supplement (PAS). Do you have any compliance advice regarding a regulatory strategy that I could propose to my clients that would satisfy them and minimize downtime?
 
 
A:  This is a great question and a complicated issue. pharmaceutical manufacturing teams have been trying to become more efficient from both manufacturing and regulatory perspectives. The challenge is to improve processes, quality systems, and manufacturing capabilities while operating efficiently and in a manner that ensures safe, effective, and cost-efficient medicines to patients. Many updates to processes and quality systems can be easily and readily implemented with little or no impact on regulatory filings.
 
 
When non compliance impacts regulatory filings, it has the potential to disrupt the supply chain if it is not handled appropriately and as efficiently as possible. FDA seems to recognize these situations and has been working to help lessen the regulatory filing burden to companies while not affecting the quality of the products. In the past three years, FDA has issued three important guidelines to help facilitate the dialog between clients and CDMO and expedite the regulatory post approval change.

 

Quality Agreements

 

The first step in the process of upgrading your facility is to get the agreement, or at least, an acknowledgment from your clients that they are aware that you intend to upgrade the facility. Any mass produced pharmaceutical in this scenario needs to communicate that it may affect the client’s regulatory filing. The first guideline that helps you facilitate the dialog with your client is the quality agreement guidance issued.
 
This guideline states:
 
“… FDA recommends that owners and contracted facilities implement written quality agreements as a tool to define communications, delineate responsibilities, and assure the quality, safety, and effectiveness of drug products.”
 
If you have a quality agreement, then you need to check and see whether the contract manufacturing organization or the client has the responsibility to maintain the facility. For example, if you have relegated this responsibility to your clients and they are hesitant to implement a needed capsule filling machine upgrade, remind them that the quality agreement guideline gives you the authority to maintain your facility (including necessary equipment upgrades):
 
“A quality agreement does not exempt contracted facilities from CGMP requirements related to the operations they perform, regardless of whether such CGMP requirements are specifically discussed in the quality agreement.”
 
Bottom line, both you and your client(s) may have responsibilities outlined in the quality agreement regarding maintaining and upgrading the facility but you, as the CMO, need to adhere to CGMPs and make sure your facility is maintained per 21 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 211.58 requirements that “any building used in the manufacture, processing, packaging, or holding of a drug product shall be maintained in a good state of repair.”
 

CMC Post-Approval Changes

 

The second guideline that helps in updating your facility in a timely manner is the chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) post-approval manufacturing changes that can be documented in an annual report that was issued in 2014.
 
This new revision reiterates the concept of like-for-like replacement while expanding some of the facility changes that can be made as an annual report. For instance, the new guidance states:
 
For equipment used in aseptic manufacturing processes (e.g., new filling line, new lyophilizer), replacement of equipment with that of the same design and operating principle, when there is no change in the approved process methodology or in-process control limits” … and … “In the sterile manufacturing of products, the addition of barriers within a conventional fill area to prevent routine in-process human intervention in an existing filling or compounding area that is qualified and validated by established procedures”
 
Many pharmaceutical facility compliance professionals would have considered these changes as needing prior approval before being implemented. Be cautious, though; just because these improvements comply with regulations, you still need to do all the necessary work to ensure the change is appropriate and does not impact product quality.
 

Comparability Protocol 

 

You may still have pharma company clients wary of the change even when you notify them of the change. The facility compliance guidelines that support making the compliancy change without going through the PAS process. This is where the third guidance comes into play, and it is the updated guidance on comparability protocols for human drugs and biologics (3). A comparability protocol has the potential to decrease the filing category.

 

Engineering Data

 

For instance, items that would normally be handled as a PAS have the potential to be considered as a changes-being-effected-in-30-days supplement. By employing the use of a comparability protocol within production scheduling,  you are making sure your facility compliance client understands the change you will be implementing. The production engineering data you will be collecting and reviewing to assess that the upgrade was successful can demonstrate changes did not affect product quality.

 

The comparability protocol is a pharmaceutical science compromise when you have clients insisting on a PAS and others who are comfortable with the annual reportable strategy. It allows you to file the protocol as a PAS and build the inventory needed in preparation for the anticipated shutdown period.

 

Contract Manufacturing

 

There are no right or wrong answers when recommending filing strategies to a client. Regardless of what the contract manufacturing organization says, the client can always chose an alternative design for manufacturing. The best way to convince a client of a filing strategy is to make sure you have a robust quality agreement in place that gives you the responsibility for maintaining your facility.

 

Become familiar with the regulations and use them to justify your recommendation. Finally, use a comparability protocol for proving like-to-like equivalency, and present the recommendation to the client in a documented manner. These facility compliance steps should help you implement a facility upgrade in a timely manner while reducing your downtime to make the improvement.

 

Published by:

 

pharmaceutical manufacturing

 

Pharmaceutical Technology
Vol. 40, No. 8
Pages: 82, 81
 

Regulatory Compliance Associates® Inc.’s background and experience in the Pharmaceutical industry has helped thousands of companies meet regulatory, compliance, quality assurance, and remediation challenges, in addition to their strategic consulting needs. With more than 20 years of experience with FDA, Health Canada, EU and global regulatory agencies worldwide, RCA offers leading pharmaceutical consultants that can help you navigate through the challenges associated with evolving industry regulations.

Our team of over 500 seasoned FDA, Health Canada and EU compliance consultants and regulatory affairs experts can understand the complexities surrounding the pharmaceutical industry and the unique inner workings of the regulatory process. 

 

About RCA® Pharmaceutical Services

Whether you’re in the product planning, development or pharmaceutical lifecycle management stage or need a remediation strategy for a compliance crisis, RCA® Inc. will guide you through every step of the regulatory process and create a customized approach depending on your product and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Our clients include:

  • Companies new to FDA, Health Canada or EU regulations and the pharmaceutical industry
  • Start-up organizations with novel submissions to 510(k) submissions from multi-national corporations
  • Investment firms seeking private equity due diligence for pre-acquisition and post-deal research
  • Law firms seeking expertise in the remediation of warning letters, consent decrees, 483’s or import bans

 

Regulatory Affairs

Regulatory affairs is Regulatory Compliance Associates® Inc.’s backbone and we fully understand the complexities of the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries. Our expertise spans all facets and levels of Regulatory Affairs, from Regulatory Support for New Products to Life Cycle Management, to other services like Outsourced Regulatory Affairs, Submissions, Training, and more.

As your partner, we can negotiate the potential assessment minefield of pharmaceuticals with insight, hindsight, and the clear advantage of our breadth and depth of knowledge and experience. We offer the following four regulatory affairs services for pharmaceutical manufacturing.

  • New Product Support
  • Product Lifecycle
  • Other Regulatory Services

 

Compliance Assurance

The regulations process surrounding pharmaceutical companies can be tricky for even the most experienced industry veteran to understand, and just one misstep could mean significant and lasting consequences for your business. At RCA® we offer the experience and resources necessary to guide you in pharmaceutical manufacturing quality compliance.

  • Assessments
  • Audits
  • Regulatory Agency Response
  • Preparation and Training
  • Inspection Readiness

 

Quality Assurance

Regulatory Compliance Associates® Inc.’s Quality Assurance services include assessments, strategy, implementations, staff augmentations, and identification of quality metrics to ensure continuous improvement, aligning with your business needs and goals. Our pharmaceutical manufacturing consultants are quality experts with experience spanning major corporations and start-ups. We know firsthand how to achieve, maintain, and improve quality, and we excel in transferring this knowledge to your organization.

  • 21 CFR Part 11
  • Data Integrity
  • Manufacturing Support
  • Facility Support

 

Remediation 

Regulatory Compliance Associates® Inc. has significant experience and a proven approach to managing FDA Warning Letters, Consent Decrees, Remediation and other serious regulatory situations. We know how to partner with executive, legal, and communication teams, and will assist management with a response that will be accepted by the regulatory agency and be realistic to execute. We can develop a comprehensive proof book of documented objective evidence demonstrating the corrective actions taken to remediate non-compliant issues. In addition, RCA can help prepare a comprehensive strategy to assist in your remediation efforts, drive continuous improvement, and maintain compliance with the regulations.

  • Regulatory Action
  • Warning Letter
  • 483 Observation
  • Oversight Services

 

About RCA

 

pharmaceutical consultantsRegulatory Compliance Associates® (RCA) provides regulatory compliance consulting to the following industries for resolution of compliance and regulatory challenges:

 

 

We understand the complexities of running a life science business and possess areas of expertise that include every facet of R&D, operations, regulatory affairs, quality, and manufacturing. We are used to working on the front lines and thriving in the scrutiny of FDA, Health Canada, MHRA and globally-regulated companies.

 

As your partners, we can negotiate the potential minefield of regulatory compliance and regulatory due diligence with insight, hindsight, and the clear advantage of our unique expertise and experience.

 

  • Founded in 2000
  • Headquartered in Wisconsin (USA)
  • Expertise backed by over 500 industry subject matter experts
  • Acquired by Sotera Health in 2021

 

About Sotera Health

 

The name Sotera Health was inspired by Soteria, the Greek goddess of safety, and reflects the Company’s unwavering commitment to its mission, Safeguarding Global Health®.

 

sotera healthSotera Health Company, along with its three best-in-class businesses – Sterigenics®Nordion® and Nelson Labs®, is a leading global provider of mission-critical end-to-end sterilization solutions and lab testing and advisory services for the healthcare industry. With a combined tenure across our businesses of nearly 200 years and our industry-recognized scientific and technological expertise, we help to ensure the safety of over 190 million patients and healthcare practitioners around the world every year.

 

We are a trusted partner to more than 5,800 customers in over 50 countries, including 40 of the top 50 medical device companies and 8 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies.

 

 

To begin the Regulatory Compliance Associates® scoping process today, please enter your information in the blue form below and click the submit button at the bottom of the webpage. 

 

 

Our website uses cookies to give you the best possible experience.

By continuing to use this site, you agree to the use of cookies.
Continue
Privacy Policy