In July 2018, the FDA unveiled a Biosimilar Action Plan (BAP) intended to “facilitate the efficient development and approval” of biosimilar products. When FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb introduced the BAP, he emphasized the importance of building a market for biosimilar products and expressed concern that the market is not yet established.

With the 2018 Compounding Policy Priorities Plan, the FDA has established a clear pathway for advancement of policies for traditional compounding pharmacies and associated outsourcing facilities. The agency intends to implement the strategies while ensuring access to medications for the critical patient population. It is acting under the belief that a growing number of organizations are trying to get into the large drug manufacturers’ domain while operating under pharmacy licenses.

Are you ready to give the FDA more? “What?” you ask, as a manufacturer of API and finished goods. Are you ready to give them more data and information about your manufacturing process? You think, “Don’t they get all the necessary information from me during their inspections and from my filings?” Well, the answer is yes and no.

The draft guidance document provides recommendations regarding the testing for RCR during the manufacture of retroviral vector-based gene therapy products, and for follow-up monitoring of patients who have received retroviral vector-based gene therapy products.

The FDA recently issued for public comment six draft guidance documents intended to serve as part of a modern, comprehensive framework for how CBER will help advance the field of gene therapy. This article summarizes the first of those draft guidances, Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Control (CMC) Information for Human Gene Therapy Investigational New Drug Applications (INDs).

Writing effective IQ/OQ/PQ protocols is a must for following the regulations required by the FDA for equipment, systems, and utilities to demonstrate suitability for the intended use and to operate according to their design and functional specifications. In order to prove the requirements are met, qualification protocols have to be written and followed.

The FDA recently revamped the methods it uses to determine which foreign and domestic drug manufacturing sites warrant inspection or other types of surveillance and at what frequency. The agency also introduced a multiyear resource planning process that will enable it to better use resources and plan frequencies of product sampling as well as inspections.

Shortcomings in data governance/data integrity and are a prominent feature in drug GMP warning letters over the past three years. FDA inspections also focused on contracted services. Additional areas were the subject of FDA investigator attention in CY2017 but may have been overshadowed by these two. This article explores several of those other areas.

Advancements in biosensor technology are becoming increasingly common in the consumer space, with wrists adorned with Fitbits or similar devices, clothing embedded with “intelligent” fibers, and personal safety devices seen in healthcare facilities across the nation. Our culture is increasingly accustomed to tracking health metrics through smartphones and simple recreational wearables. In the pharmaceutical space, we are now seeing where success in the consumer segment can translate to value-adds for clinical trials.

Enforcement of failures in data integrity and data governance began almost 20 years ago and continues to increase in visibility and number of warning letter enforcement actions. While the FDA is not the only health authority that identifies these issues in inspections and enforcement actions, its transparency ensures the data is available.