The Fitness For Purpose Of Analytical Methods

This handbook defines procedures that ensure the best use of resources and enables laboratories to generate consistent, reliable data. Written in a concise, easy-to-read language and illustrated with worked examples, this is a guide to the best practices and methods. A control framework for the development and validation of laboratory-based analytical methods is established. Particular attention is given to the sample, methods chosen, instrumentation, personnel, and calculations used.

Quality Assurance in Chemical Measurement, an advanced EURACHEM textbook, provides in-depth but easy-to-understand coverage for training, teaching and continuing studies. The CD-ROM accompanying the book contains course materials produced by ten experienced specialists, including more than 750 overheads (graphics and text) in ready-to-use PowerPoint® documents in English and German language. The book will serve as an advanced textbook for analytical chemistry students and professionals in industry and service labs and as a reference text and source of course materials for lecturers. The second edition has been completely revised according to the newest legislation.

Analytical chemical results touch everyone's lives: Can we eat the food? Do I have a disease? Did the defendant leave his DNA at the crime scene? Should I invest in that gold mine? When a chemist measures something, how do we know that the result is appropriate? What is "fit for purpose" in the context of analytical chemistry? Quality Assurance for the Analytical Chemistry Laboratory explains the practices that chemistry laboratories adopt so that we all can have confidence in the answers to these questions.

It is now becoming recognized in the measurement community that it is as important to communicate the uncertainty related to a specific measurement as it is to report the measurement itself. Without knowing the uncertainty, it is impossible for the users of the result to know what confidence can be placed in it; it is also impossible to assess the comparability of different measurements of the same parameter. This volume collects 20 outstanding papers on the topic, mostly published from 1999-2002 in the journal "Accreditation and Quality Assurance." They provide the rationale for why it is important to evaluate and report the uncertainty of a result in a consistent manner. They also describe the concept of uncertainty, the methodology for evaluating uncertainty, and the advantages of using suitable reference materials. Finally, the benefits to both the analytical laboratory and the user of the results are considered.

Adopting a practical approach, the authors provide a detailed interpretation of the existing regulations (GMP, ICH), while also discussing the appropriate calculations, parameters and tests. The book thus allows readers to validate the analysis of pharmaceutical compounds while complying with both the regulations as well as the industry demands for robustness and cost effectiveness. Following an introduction to the basic parameters and tests in pharmaceutical validation, including specificity, linearity, range, precision, accuracy, detection and quantitation limits, the text focuses on a life-cycle approach to validation and the integration of validation into the whole analytical quality assurance system. The whole is rounded off with a look at future trends. With its first-hand knowledge of the industry as well as regulating bodies, this is an invaluable reference for analytical chemists, the pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutists, QA officers, and public authorities.

Validation describes the procedures used to analyze pharmaceutical products so that the data generated will comply with the requirements of regulatory bodies of the US, Canada, Europe and Japan. Calibration of Instruments describes the process of fixing, checking or correcting the graduations of instruments so that they comply with those regulatory bodies. This book provides a thorough explanation of both the fundamental and practical aspects of biopharmaceutical and bioanalytical methods validation. It teaches the proper procedures for using the tools and analysis methods in a regulated lab setting. Readers will learn the appropriate procedures for calibration of laboratory instrumentation and validation of analytical methods of analysis. These procedures must be executed properly in all regulated laboratories, including pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical laboratories, clinical testing laboratories (hospitals, medical offices) and in food and cosmetic testing laboratories.