Quality In The Manufacture Of Medicines And Other Healthcare Products

This overview of quality assurance in pharmaceutical production describes the principles and practice, and discusses specific quality issues, providing a guide to both national and internatinal regulatory requirements.

Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.

Over the years, the World Health Organization's Expert Committee on Specifications for Pharmaceutical Preparations, originally created to prepare The International Pharmacopoeia, has made numerous recommendations relevant to quality assurance and control for national regulatory and control systems and the implementation of international standards, but for the most part they have only been available in the annexes to various technical reports. In this second of two volumes, those annexes providing guidelines related to good manufacturing practices and to inspection of manufacturers and drug distribution channels have been gathered and revised. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Written by twenty-eight experts, filled with recommendations that can immediately be put into action, this book provides the strategies and tactics required to link and harmonize manufacturing processes with GMP to achieve optimum operability and cost-effective regulatory compliance. Drawn from name brand and generic companies and regulatory and contract organizations across the globe, the contributing authors bring readers a combined 450+ years of hands-on experience. They offer thought-provoking questions to help readers diagnose their company's challenges, needs, and available options, all with the single purpose of achieving their ultimate goals: quality, high productivity, and profitability.

Globalization is rapidly changing lives and industries around the world. Drug development, authorization, and regulatory supervision have become international endeavors, with most medicines becoming global commodities. Drug companies utilize global supply chains that often include facilities in countries with inconsistent regulations from those of the United States, perform pivotal trials in multiple countries to support registration submissions in various jurisdictions, and subsequently market their medicines throughout most of the world. These companies operate across borders and require individual national regulators to ensure that drugs authorized for use in their countries are safe and effective, and appropriate for their health care system and their population. This process involves significant resources and often duplicative work. It is important to consider how this process can be improved in order to better allocate resources, time, and efforts to improve public health. Regulating Medicines in a Globalized World: The Need for Increased Reliance Among Regulators considers the role of mutual recognition and other reliance activities among regulators in contributing to enhancing public health. This report identifies opportunities for leveraging reliance activities more broadly in order to potentially impact public health globally. Key topics in this report include the job of medicines regulators in today's world, what policy makers need to know about today's regulatory environment, stakeholder views of recognition and reliance, as well as removing impediments and facilitating action for greater recognition and reliance among regulatory authorities.

A practical guide to Quality by Design for pharmaceutical product development Pharmaceutical Quality by Design: A Practical Approach outlines a new and proven approach to pharmaceutical product development which is now being rolled out across the pharmaceutical industry internationally. Written by experts in the field, the text explores the QbD approach to product development. This innovative approach is based on the application of product and process understanding underpinned by a systematic methodology which can enable pharmaceutical companies to ensure that quality is built into the product. Familiarity with Quality by Design is essential for scientists working in the pharmaceutical industry. The authors take a practical approach and put the focus on the industrial aspects of the new QbD approach to pharmaceutical product development and manufacturing. The text covers quality risk management tools and analysis, applications of QbD to analytical methods, regulatory aspects, quality systems and knowledge management. In addition, the book explores the development and manufacture of drug substance and product, design of experiments, the role of excipients, multivariate analysis, and include several examples of applications of QbD in actual practice. This important resource: Covers the essential information about Quality by Design (QbD) that is at the heart of modern pharmaceutical development Puts the focus on the industrial aspects of the new QbD approach Includes several illustrative examples of applications of QbD in practice Offers advanced specialist topics that can be systematically applied to industry Pharmaceutical Quality by Design offers a guide to the principles and application of Quality by Design (QbD), the holistic approach to manufacturing that offers a complete understanding of the manufacturing processes involved, in order to yield consistent and high quality products.

Highlighting key issues and differences among GMPs of Europe, Canada, and the WHO, this reference examines US law and governmental policy affecting domestic and multinational pharmaceutical manufacturing. The book recommend pragmatic ways to interpret and comply with FDA CGMP regulation and related criteria. They focus on geographical redistribution of manufacturing facilities, accommodation of a diversity of regulatory and statutory governance, adaptation to disparate human resources, and new growth areas of manufacture and distribution of homeopathic remedies and dietary supplements, in addition to the greater quality control required of pharmacists and other authorized dispensers.