Добавил:
kiopkiopkiop18@yandex.ru t.me/Prokururor I Вовсе не секретарь, но почту проверяю Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз: Предмет: Файл:
Ординатура / Хирургия / Библиотека им академика М.И. Перельмана / Книга_5335_Библиотеки_им_академика_М_И_Перельмана.pdf
Скачиваний:
0
Добавлен:
30.08.2026
Размер:
45 Мб
Скачать
172
Manufacture and Supply, Science and Reg ulation Towards High-Qua lity Medicinal Products
Participate in joint inspections with other PIC/S Inspectors to “calibrate” one another’s inspection skills; and
Allow appeal by aggrieved manufacturer through legal chan­nels under national laws on inspection and licensing of pharma­ceutical manufacturers.
In general, manufacturers also frown upon unannounced or sur­prise inspections. They prefer or expect the inspector to perform scheduled inspections and to announce the dates of inspection and names of inspectors who are visiting their facilities. In Singapore, routine (announced) inspections are the norm, whilst surprise or unannounced inspections are the exception. Singapore HSA con­ducts surprise inspections only during investigational or “for cause” inspections, when there is feedback from the public or a whistle­blower about irregularities or illegal operations at certain man­ufacturing sites, or when there are serious quality problems and product recalls. HSA, like most other medicines regulatory author­ities, would like to work in collaboration with the manufacturers. However, from time to time, the inspectors do come across black sheep among the manufacturing fraternity; in such a situation, unannounced inspections are warranted.
Manufacturers also wish that the drug regulatory authority keep the GMP standard constant. They do not like to see too frequent changes to the GMP standard which the inspector uses as the yard­stick for inspection. However, science, pharmaceutical technology, biotechnology, computer technology, and process and analytical technologies are dynamic, and they change with time. Hence, GMP standards and pharmaceutical regulations will have to change in tandem. The regulator and the industry have to adapt accordingly. What the authority can help is to give ample grace period for the industry to adjust to these changes.
Compliance of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers to Good Manufacturing Practice Standards

5.6. Who Inspects the Inspectors?

All PIC/S members must implement a Quality Management System (QMS) that meets the PIC/S Quality System Requirements for Phar­maceutical Inspectorates. In addition, some drug regulatory author­ities such as the Singapore HSA, Malaysia National Pharmaceuti­cal Regulatory Agency (NPRA) and UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency are also certified to the ISO 9001 QMS standard. So, the pharmaceutical inspectorates and their inspectors are inspected by their professional counterparts from PIC/S as well as third-party assessors from conformity assessment bodies (CABs). Over the years, the GMP inspectorate of HSA has been subject to regular audits by assessors from other PIC/S member countries as well as third-party CABs. The quality journey of the Singapore inspectorate started way back in 1997 when the GMP Audit Unit or inspectorate was first established, and its subsequent membership of PIC/S as its first Asian member on January 2000 (see Chapter 1). During its journey, the GMP Audit Unit had been subject to regular assessments by CABs as well as PIC/S delegations.
173
In 2017, the Singapore GMP Audit Unit was subject to a reassess­ment by a delegation of PIC/S assessors, and was declared to have met all its 78 indicators (criteria) which included the availability of a legal framework for inspection and licensing of pharmaceuti­cal manufacturers, provisions to revoke manufacturing authoriza­tions, implementation of an eective QMS, implementation of the PIC/S GMP standard, and competency of inspectors based on actual observed inspections of three manufacturing sites. Singapore HSA continues to be a PIC/S Participating Authority.
In summary, it must be emphasized that Singapore’s membership of PIC/S has created many opportunities for both the regulatory
174
Manufacture and Supply, Science and Reg ulation Towards High-Qua lity Medicinal Products
authority (HSA) and the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in Singapore. A successful GMP inspection is one where the manu­facturers work in close partnership with the inspectors, and where mutual expectations are met or clarified. For the manufacturer, a successful inspection sells the commitment of the company to quality, and enhances its strength, branding and reputation. For the inspector, a good track record of GMP compliance by a man­ufacturer leads to less need to scrutinize the manufacturer and therefore less frequent inspection of the facility. After all, both the manufacturer and regulator do share a common mission of protect­ing the health and well-being of the patient and consumer.
Reassessment of HSA for PIC/S membership: 18–22 September 2017
Chapter 6
Manufacturing High-Quality
Medicinal Products
175

6.1. Historical Development of Pharmaceutical Quality

he concept and understanding of pharmaceutical qual­ity have evolved over the years. Historically, the develop­ment of pharmaceutical quality may be divided into three
T
inal products were made personally by an apothecary or a pharma­cist, whose compounding skills determined the quality of the prod­uct. A skillful compounding pharmacist could produce rounder pills, clearer and tastier elixirs, or smoother and whiter creams. Round pills, clear elixirs and smooth white creams were considered to be well-made or well-compounded, and therefore a proxy indicator of good-quality medicinal products. It was an era when you judge the
phases. The first phase is the era prior to 1880 when medic-
176
Manufacture and Supply, Science and Reg ulation Towards High-Qua lity Medicinal Products
quality of a medicinal product by its appearance, just as some peo­ple would today still judge a book by its cover. Look at the range of magazines highlighted below; they have very colorful and attractive covers. In contrast, look at the other two publications on the next page — the covers are plain and unattractive, but these publications are the United States Pharmacopoeia and the British Pharmaco­poeia respectively. These are books of standard, containing scientific, authoritative and invaluable contents, and as a corollary, should be deemed as high-quality publications. But when these publications are displayed side by side in a bookstore, more people will be attracted by the magazines rather than the pharmacopoeias. This is because peo­ple are generally and superficially attracted by colorful and cheery visual presentations, and good and attractive looks, whether it is a book, a medicinal product or any object.
Colorful, cheery and attractive magazines
Manufacturing High-Quality Medicinal Products
The second phase in the historical development of pharmaceutical quality is between 1880 and 1960, a period lasting about 80 years, when the results of end-product testing was the measure of product quality. This phase started when the first assay method to quantify liquid extracts of ergot was developed in 1880. (Just for additional information, ergot is a fungus, and its extract contains ergotamine for treating migraine, and ergometrine for treating post-partum hemorrhage, which is serious vaginal bleeding in the mother fol­lowing delivery of the baby.) Since then, numerous test methods had been developed over the years. This period may be described as the era of testing quality into the product, or simply quality by testing. Testing quality into the product means that when a product is made, it is tested largely at the end of the batch manufacturing process, and if it passes the test(s) or comply with the product specifications, it is deemed to be of good quality. However, many of us are now aware that product or quality control (QC) testing has its limitations. Firstly, conventional QC tests are “destructive”, i.e., they destroy the
177
178
Manufacture and Supply, Science and Reg ulation Towards High-Qua lity Medicinal Products
product in the course of testing. Therefore, QC tests are performed only on a small, statistically “representative” sample size with the assumption that the batch is homogeneous. You do not (or cannot) perform QC testing on 100% of the product because if you do so, there will be nothing left of the batch of product for consumption. So, the analyst conducts QC tests on a sample of the product, and if the sample passes the test, he extrapolates the result to the entire batch and then releases the batch for sale and supply. This is the first limitation of quality by testing, that is, product testing and its sam­pling process is limited by statistics and probability. Secondly, you can test only when you know the specific analyte. (An analyte is the substance in a product that you want to analyze or quantify.) Only when you know what is the analyte, or suspect its presence in the product, then only can you set out to quantify it with the help of the test method and reference standard. And thirdly, the test method has to be suciently specific, accurate and reliable. Otherwise, you cannot quantify the analyte accurately or pick up low concentrations of an analyte or impurity. In short, test methods have to be validated for key analytical attributes such as specificity, accuracy, precision, robustness, linearity, limits of detection and limits of quantitation.
On 12 September 2008, The Straits Times newspaper reported that some babies were found to have kidney stones arising from the consumption of milk contaminated with melamine. This case illustrates clearly why test methods must be specific, accurate and reliable. Unscrupulous manufacturers know that milk powders are tested for nitrogen content as a proxy or indicator of (milk) pro­tein content. So, these manufacturers added melamine, which con­tains high amounts of nitrogen, to the milk powder to boost the nitrogen content. But, the fact is that melamine is basically a type of plastic which can cause kidney stones and acute kidney failure
Manufacturing High-Quality Medicinal Products
when consumed. The World Health Organization prohibits the use of melamine in food products, including milk powder.
179
This brings us to the third phase in the development of the concept of pharmaceutical quality, i.e., the post-1960 or modern era, where compliance to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) by the manufac­turer and quality assurance of the product became the yardstick of quality. This yardstick has moved upstream, and it includes monitor­ing and controlling quality during product design and formulation of the pharmaceutical dosage form, control of starting materials used in production and packaging processes, pharmaceutical process val­idation, as well as GMP compliance by the producers of the starting materials as well as manufacturers of the finished products. The third phase is the era of “designing and building quality into the product”, or simply, Quality by Design, with increasing use of process analyti­cal technology and other innovative Industry 4.0 technologies.
180
Manufacture and Supply, Science and Reg ulation Towards High-Qua lity Medicinal Products
One of the earliest applications of quality by design is “parametric release”, which is the release of a batch of medicinal products based
on critical process parameters. In the case of an injectable product which has been terminally sterilized by a validated moist heat sterilization process, parametric release is the release of that batch of
Moist heat sterilization (autoclaving)
injectable product without the need to conduct batch sterility testing on the finished injectable product. Moist heat sterilization (also known as autoclaving) is a form of heat treatment using saturated steam at high temperature and high pressure to kill micro-organisms in pharmaceutical products intended to be injected into the human body. The development of parametric release evolved when it was realized that the Sterility Test conducted on the batch of finished injectable product has several limitations. Firstly, it has been shown that if a sample of 20 vials or ampoules of a batch of 1,000 units of an injection is subject to the compendial batch Sterility Test, there is
Manufacturing High-Quality Medicinal Products
only a 2% probability of rejection, or conversely, almost a 98% chance of passing the Sterility Test even though there is a 0.1% contamina­tion, i.e., 1 in 1,000 units is contaminated (non-sterile). For 1% con­tamination rate or 1 in 100 bottles contaminated (non-sterile), the chance of passing the Sterility Test is still very high, at 82%. The table on limitations of batch sterility test is shown below.
Limitations of batch sterility test
181
So, it is quite clear that for a sterile medicinal product such as injec­tions, infusion fluids, dialysates or eye drops, the batch Sterility Test, which is performed on the end-product at the end of the sterilization process, is not a highly dependable test, and therefore not a reliable indicator of sterility assurance level. There is a high statistical prob­ability of passing the batch Sterility Test even when contamination rates are relatively high. Additionally, the cost of a Sterility Test is by no means cheap and at least two weeks of incubation period are needed for the Sterility Test. During this incubation period, the ster­ilized product cannot be released in real time for distribution to the market; they have to be quarantined in the warehouse. This results in large amounts of the sterilized medicinal products being stuck in the warehouse, and incurring expensive storage space during quar­antine. For bulky injectable products such as large-volume paren­teral products (LVPs), such as those with a volume above 100 mL per