A Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) Strategy Forum was held in January 2012 in San Francisco, CA, to examine the topic of rapid pharmaceutical product development. The purpose of this meeting was to promote an understanding of how best to increase the speed of product development, focusing on areas that improve chances of regulatory success while lessening the time it takes to get a product through development and onto the market. Participants also sought to identify and discuss…
December 2012
A Framework for Process Knowledge Management
Process development and manufacturing for biopharmaceuticals are often disjointed activities. Disconnects between groups within an organization can be aggravated by a lack of common terminology and poor data-management practices. Implementing a simple data model based on the ISA-88 standard for batch control can help companies capture process and facility data throughout their product life cycle (1). The first half of this two-part article illustrates how translating a process description to a structured electronic format could transform the bioprocessing…
Managing Cost Without Sacrificing Quality
Over the past decade, significant pressures have threatened the future of many pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. Increasing drug development costs, declining research and development (R&D) productivity, mounting regulatory setbacks, and looming patent expirations — with fewer blockbuster therapies on the horizon — are collectively challenging many businesses to stay profitable and competitive within the industry. Many companies are intensifying their focus on reducing operating costs, particularly within manufacturing operations. This trend is almost an omnipresent feature of management…
A Decade of Success
After nearly a year of planning, BPI announced the winners of its first awards program on the evening of 9 October 2012, during the BioProcess International Conference. Award finalists, sponsors, and guests joined us for a banquet ceremony in the Providence, RI, Convention Center to honor the 36 finalists for our Decade of BioProcess awards — and announce the 12 winners. In his welcoming comments to the 150 attendees, BPI publisher Brian Caine noted that “during this…
Encouraging In-House Disclosures In a Whistleblower’s World
Compliance officials have a great deal to worry about. They are judged by results and loaded with stress over the latest changes in government guidance documents and internal budget pressures. They need to continually update their programs to stay abreast of those developments, including revisions that target in-house processes to encourage disclosures from whistleblowers. Failure to provide for such revisions places both a company and individuals at risk Whistleblower Protection Expanded and Includes Rewards In response…
Biopharmaceutical Development and Production Week
IBC’s Biopharmaceutical Development and Production Week provides updates on current and emerging methods to improve your bioproduction capabilities and delivers strategies to help you overcome process challenges and accelerate production of the biopharmaceutical industry’s emerging new wave of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) and novel molecules. Methods The Monday and Tuesday tracks provide a firm foundation in practical methods and strategies for specific unit operations. This can help you tackle some of the specific challenges in your job function. Implement process validation…
Understanding the Patient Journey
The biopharmaceutical industry is abuzz with talk regarding a 2011 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance on human factors and the mitigation of user-based risk in the development of medical devices (1). As expected, his talk is often accompanied by a sense of anxiety. Device developers and the growing number of biomanufacturers developing combination drug–device products now need answers to usability questions they are hardly familiar with. Wrong answers may have direct (and troubling) implications from a…
Global Marketplace
Cold-Chain Tracking Product: PakSense BIOmed XpressPDF package label Applications: Drugs, vaccines, and other temperature-sensitive biologics Features: Calibrated to NIST standards, PakSense BIOmed XpressPDF labels help companies monitor and record product package temperatures. The size of a sugar packet, each waterproof label features a USB connection that automatically generates PDF files. Unlike bulky recorders that read ambient conditions, a label sensor measures the temperature of the surface on which it is attached once a minute. Results can be read at a…
Where’s the Viral Marketing When Spreading Information on Actual Viruses?
The importance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, www.cdc.gov) in the tracking and treatment of viruses such as the influenza virus cannot be underestimated. It is a first line of defense against an influenza pandemic as well as a way to analyze seasonal influenza outbreaks to make certain that they do not deviate from their normal seasonal and geographic patterns. The CDC seeks to communicate with the American public through a wide variety of media. To its…