This week Endo Pharmaceuticals reported that several of its products may experience a "constraint" or "disruption" in supply following the temporary shutdown of Novartis Consumer Health Inc.'s Lincoln, NE, manufacturing facility, where these Endo drugs have been manufactured.
Packaging inconsistencies as well as broken or chipped tablets have prompted Novartis Consumer Health Inc. (NCH) to conduct a sweeping recall.
A spate of drug recalls earlier this year has renewed attention on their cause: glass delamination. Glass vials have been long considered safe because of their longevity in the industry.
To address what is becoming a "significant public health problem," FDA this week released the report, "A Review of FDA's Approach to Medical Product Shortages." In particular, it details several agency concerns about sterile injectables, which have accounted for the majority of drugs in short supply. FDA's findings bring to mind the number of drug recalls the industry has seen over the last couple years because of quality concerns.
By Marie Redding
Freelance Writer
Uhlmann VisioTec began focusing on PAT solutions in 2000, but it became a major initiative in 2004 and 2005. Since then, Christoph Lehmann, director, Uhlmann VisioTec, says this business has been continually increasing. The company provides certain tools that can support many different approaches to PAT. “The more a company does, the more they can save,” says Lehmann.
We are pleased to announce that three packaging professionals have joined our Editorial Advisory Board:
Michael Forehand, Principal Packaging Engineer, Global Engineering and Technology, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals;
Dan Penny, Director of Packaging Engineering, Cardinal Health;
and Edward M. Dunn, Senior Director Packaging Technology, Merck Manufacturing Division.
Cost-cutting is a frequent task of today's packaging engineer. Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers are looking to reduce costs wherever they can, so engineers must balance new packaging development with savings-minded product life cycle management.
But how can packaging engineers possibly juggle this increasing workload? Companies must develop a portfolio management process for prioritizing all projects, advises Stephen Birtsas, a manager with global innovation management consultancy Kalypso.
Thanks to ICH Q8 on Pharmaceutical Development, considerations such as Quality by Design, Critical Quality Attributes, and Design Space have crept into day-to-day drug development and production, influencing several packaging decisions. In essence, these concepts have encouraged drug manufacturers to better understand drug stability, resulting in a closer examination of risks using science.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) does not plan to challenge Rx-360 on its audit-sharing programs in which pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies share supplier-audit information and expenses. According to Rx-360, this decision will enable the consortium to proceed with plans to implement its audit sharing programs.