international pharmaceutical quality
Transcription
international pharmaceutical quality
International Pharmaceutical Quality ™ MAY/JUNE 2009 | Vol. 3, No. 3 | www.IPQpubs.coM ANALYSIS OF FDA AND EU GMP ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY shows inadequate investigation of manufacturing and product nonconformances to be the most pressing concern on both sides of the Co n te n ts 2 FDA Links GMP, Drug Approval Problems Atlantic. FDA warning letters and injunctions are frequently link- 3 Advent, KV, Actavis Totowa Enjoined ing GMP problems with the manufacturing of products that do not 8 FDA 2006 Compliance Guide Spurs have the required new drug approval or do not meet OTC monograph standards, as the agency’s crackdown on the various types of unapproved drugs continues. In upgrading deviation investigation systems, regulators are looking for human factors analysis and a deeper understanding of the flaws in the quality system out of which the operator errors stem. FDA’s foreign warning letters reveal the growing focus on supply chain control. For biologics, the challenges of vaccine production are getting increased inspection attention as this product segment expands. FDA is concerned that Biological Product Deviation Reports are not always getting submitted on time. Bill Paulson, Editor-In-Chief Injunctions 10 Implement ICH Q8-10 and Save On Compliance 11 Warning Letters Reveal FDA Hot Buttons 12 GMPs, Application Integrity Cited At Ranbaxy 14 OOS Investigations, Records At Issue Abroad 16 75% Of Warning Letters Cite OOS Investigations 17 To Err Is Human, But Not GMP 20 Vaccine Manufacturing Draws Attention 24 Vaccine Deviation Reports Often Late VOICES FROM THE DIALOGUE: • FDA drug GMP warning letters issued in 2008/2009 (Appendix I, pp. 25-30) • MHRA GMP inspector Andrew Hopkins on top MHRA inspection findings (Appendix II, pp. 31-35) • Parexel consultant David Chesney on forces impacting FDA enforcement (Appendix III, pp. 36-41) • CDER compliance official Joe Famulare on recent GMP injunctions (Appendix IV, pp. 42-45) A significant proportion of FDA warning letters and almost all of the injunction actions citing drug GMP problems over the past three years have also involved findings that the firm was manufacturing and distributing products not meeting drug approval and branding requirements. that it would be more aggressively exercising its enforcement discretion against “the universe of unapproved, illegally marketed drug products” and the firms marketing them. FDA estimated that several thousand products may be implicated. FDA’s recent enforcement activity indicates that marketing unapproved drug products will escalate the agency’s response when GMP problems are found. The compliance guide (7132c.02 – “Marketed New Drugs Without NDAs or ANDAs”) provides a compelling justification of the agency’s concern with these products and of its risk-based enforcement approach. Included in the CPG is an informative appendix containing a history of the relevant legislative/regulatory developments over the past century. In mid-2006, the agency fired a shot across the bow in a revised compliance policy guide (CPG) and related releases Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ International Pharmaceutical Quality The appendix helps explain the categories and regulatory status of the drugs involved and defines the boundaries of the agency’s current enforcement initiative. Key events outlined in the appendix include: the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act requiring that new drugs be approved for safety; the 1962 “Kefauver” amendments to the Act requiring new drugs to be proven effective as well as safe to obtain marketing; and the Drug Efficacy Study Implementation (DESI) initiative begun in the 1970s, which enforced the findings of a large scale review of the efficacy of drugs approved or marketed as safe prior to 1962. Following several dozen infant deaths from a high potency Vitamin E intravenous injection named E-ferol and Congressional prompting in 1984, CDER assessed the number of pre-1962 drug products not specifically covered under DESI and expanded its compliance effort to include all unapproved prescription (Rx) products. The CPG explains that some unapproved marketed products are undergoing DESI reviews in which final determination regarding efficacy has not yet been made. In most cases, FDA has made an initial determination that the products lack substantial evidence of effectiveness, and the manufacturers have requested a hearing on that finding. The guide notes that, in accord with its longstanding policy, FDA will not take action against the products subject to an ongoing DESI proceeding until the proceeding is concluded. FDA Links GMP, Drug Approval Problems The underlying concern behind the 2006 compliance policy guide is that drugs that have not undergone FDA approval or do not conform to monographs have not established their safety and efficacy nor the adequacy and accuracy of the directions and warnings in the labeling. High on the radar screen, the CPG states, will be unapproved drugs that: • pose safety risks • lack evidence of effectiveness • contain fraudulent health claims • compete with approved products, and • are reformulated to evade an FDA enforcement action. Also drawing attention, the CPG indicates, will be unapproved drugs manufactured by firms with actionable compliance problems in other areas such as GMPs and adverse event reporting. The CPG directs that enforcement actions taken in these situations should encompass the unapproved drugs “even if there are other unapproved versions of the drug made by other firms on the market.” FDA’s “carrot and stick” approach in the unapproved drugs arena has included a widely attended educational workshop in 2007 and the establishment of an unapproved drugs coordinator in its new drug reviewing division to help companies figure out how to get implicated products through the FDA approval process. For over-the-counter (OTC) drug products, the pivotal action was FDA’s implementation in 1972 of a review process on OTC drugs by therapeutic class that would result in monographs setting forth allowable claims, labeling, and active ingredients for each class. Drugs marketed in accordance with a final monograph are considered to be generally recognized as safe and effective (GRAS/GRAE) and do not require FDA approval of a marketing application. In general, the agency has been proactive in encouraging firms to work voluntarily with the agency to bring currently unapproved products into compliance. Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Office of Compliance Director Deborah Autor has joined other FDA officials in pointing out at public conferences that avenues for assistance have been established and stressing that the agency “would like to see companies come in and voluntarily comply [rather than] taking all these products off the market by enforcement.” Final monographs have been published for a majority of OTC drugs, and tentative final monographs are in place for almost all remaining categories. [Editor’s Note: A discussion by Autor of the unapproved drugs initiative and other current compliance office priorities is provided in the January/February 2008 IPQ on pp. 35-44.] FDA has also finalized a number of “negative” monographs that list therapeutic categories – for example, OTC daytime sedatives – in which no OTC drugs can be marketed without NDA approval. The agency has also issued a list of active ingredients that cannot be used in OTC drugs without approved applications due to inadequate GRAS/GRAE data. However, the agency has also been wielding the stick when its entreaties and offers of assistance go unheeded. FDA has been targeting specific classes of unapproved products deemed higher risk. Since the CPG was issued, at least 10 product groups have been pursued (see box on p. 3). ww w.ipqpubs.com 2 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality The class actions have generally involved a Federal Register announcement and news release in which the agency states its intention to take enforcement action against all unapproved products containing a specific drug. The announcements include an explanation of why the drug class is a health risk and give a date by which product marketing must be discontinued if new drug approval has not been obtained. After that point, the announcements warn that the products and the companies marketing them may be subject to immediate enforcement action. FDA also has usually issued a Q&A document about the particular enforcement action and class of drug involved. The actions extend to the companies marketing the products that do not take heed in the form of warning letters, seizures and injunctions. FDA’s most recent class action came at the end of March. Targeted were 14 unapproved Rx narcotic drugs widely marketed in several dosage forms. The targeted products included high concentrate morphine sulfate oral solutions and immediate release tablets containing morphine sulfate, hydromorphone or oxycodone. Warning letters were issued to nine companies that further enforcement action may follow if they did not stop manufacturing and distributing the products. The companies were Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane, Cody Labs, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Lannett, Lehigh Valley Technologies, Mallinckrodt, Physicians Total Care, Roxane Labs, and Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals. Following the warning letter issuance, FDA received feedback from the pain management community that the market removal of unapproved morphine sulfate oral solution 20 mg/ml would impose hardship on palliative care patients. In April, the agency extended the period of enforcement discretion until 180 days after any firm receives approval for the 20 mg/ml morphine or if/when alternatives become available. Recent injunction actions make clear that FDA is ratcheting up its enforcement response in particular where unapproved products combine several of the risk factors and the manufacturer’s overall quality system is deficient as well. Explaining the agency’s motivation for the unapproved drugs initiative in a New York Times editorial in late 2007, then Commissioner Andrew Von Eshenbach pointed out that these factors are often confluent. UNAPPROVED DRUG CLASSES TARGETED BY FDA 2006 • carbinoxamine drug products • quinine sulfate drug products 2007 • ergotamine-containing drug products • hydrocodone drug products • timed-release drug products containing guaifenesin • trimethobenzamide HCl suppositories 2008 • ophthalmic balanced salt solution products • injectable colchicine products • topical drug products containing papain 2009 • unapproved narcotics containing morphine sulfate, hydromorphone or oxycodone Noting that unapproved drugs are sometimes referred to as “legacy drugs,” the Commissioner stressed that “a legacy is not a substitute for drug approval. Individual experience, anecdotal evidence and marketing history are insufficient bases for concluding that a drug is safe and effective. In fact, experience demonstrates that unapproved drugs are often unsafe, ineffective, inappropriately labeled and poorly manufactured.” Since the initiative began in mid-2006, FDA has taken enforcement action against more than two dozen companies found to have significant violations of cGMPs or adverse event reporting requirements and to be making unapproved drugs (see box below). In eight cases, the action has escalated to the injunction level. FDA Enjoins Advent, KV, Actavis Totowa There have been three injunction actions in the last six months that fit the model of involving a combination of GMP problems with the manufacturing of multiple unapproved drugs. The most recent of the injunctions, reaching the consent decree stage in April, involved the manufacturing operations of East Windsor, New Jersey-based Advent Pharmaceuticals and its manufacturing subsidiary in Westminster, Maryland (Neilgen Pharmaceuticals doing business as Unigen). FDA’s release on the injunction notes that the companies were contract manufacturing and distributing more than 50 unapproved drug products primarily in the Rx cough/cold area. The consent decree, signed by the CEO/President of the Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 3 International Pharmaceutical Quality FIRMS DRAWING ENFORCEMENT ACTION FOR CGMPS AND UNAPPROVED DRUGS The following are firms against which FDA has taken enforcement action since 2006 for a combination of significant violations of cGMP and/or adverse event reporting requirements and the marketing of unapproved drugs. The enforcement activity has included warning letters, seizures and injunctions. Abraxis Bioscience Warning Letter (December 2006) Actavis Totowa Warning Letter (August 2006) Injunction (January 2009) Advent Pharmaceuticals/Neilgen Pharmaceuticals Warning Letters (1997, 2001, 2002 and May 2006) Injunction (April 2009) American Hormones Warning Letter (January 2008) Amerifit Brands Warning Letter (November 2007) Cascadia Manufacturing Warning Letter (August 2008) Concept Laboratories Warning Letter (August 2008) Concord Laboratories Warning Letter (July 2006) C.R. Canfield Warning Letter (2004) Injunction (September 2006) Deltex Pharmaceuticals Warning Letter (October 2008) Elge Warning Letter (May 2008) Farmacia La Salud Warning Letter (March 2008) G&W Laboratories Warning Letter (July 2008) KV Pharmaceutical Warning Letters (2000 & 2002) Seizure (July 2008) Injunction ( March 2009) Midland Pharmaceutical Warning Letter (March 2008) Newman (Medi-Stat) Warning Letter (June 2008) Omega Tech Labs Warning Letter (October 2008) PharmaFab Warning Letters (2002 & 2004) Injunction (April 2007) Pharma Pac Warning Letter (April 2009) Primapharm Warning Letter (October 2008) Prime Enterprises Warning Letter (January 2009) Scientific Laboratories Injunction (May 2008) Sheffield Laboratories (Faria) Warning Letter (July 2006) Syntho Pharmaceuticals and Intermax Pharmaceuticals Warning Letters (two in 2003) Injunction (August 2006) TME Enterprises Warning Letter (December 2007) Vintage Pharmaceuticals Warning Letter (February 2008) Vita-Erb Warning Letters (1997, 2002 & 2004) Injunction (November 2006) companies involved, Bharat Patel, calls for the defendants to destroy their existing drug supply and prohibits them from manufacturing and distributing new drugs without FDA’s approval. Like most such consent decrees, the firms must retain outside experts to advise them on cGMP compliance and obtain written authorization from FDA to resume operations. Again following the norm, financial penalties for noncompliance are specified. facturing unapproved drugs. The inspections “also revealed numerous and recurring violations” of cGMP requirements and that Unigen and Advent had “failed to respond adequately” to the issues raised. The release explains that FDA sought the injunction after multiple inspections were conducted showing the company had failed to comply with previous warnings about manu- The company also ran into trouble with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) around 2000 as part of the agency’s crackdown on pharmaceutical companies whose products end up Neil Laboratories, part of CEO Patel’s New Jersey operations, received warning letters in 1997 and 2001 addressing a variety of GMP concerns. ww w.ipqpubs.com 4 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality in clandestine labs that manufacture illegal drugs. Between 1999 and 2001, DEA issued several warning letters to Neil focused on the distribution of products containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine found to be purchased for the illicit manufacture of methamphetamine. In 2003, Patel agreed to surrender Neil Labs’ registration with DEA to manufacture “List 1” chemicals and agreed not to manufacture and distribute OTC pharmaceutical products containing the listed drugs. In late 2002, FDA addressed a warning letter to Patel pointing to the out-of-compliance status of Neil Labs extended-release guaifenesin. The OTC monograph system does not include provision for extended-release dosage form products and they are considered new drugs requiring an approved application for marketing, which Neil Labs had not obtained. In May 2006, FDA issued Patel another warning letter extensively detailing both cGMP problems and Neil Labs’ continued manufacturing of unapproved extended-release Rx drugs that were also not appropriately labeled for use (“misbranded”). Guaifenesin-containing products again figured prominently in the list of those generating drug approval concern. A third section of the 2006 warning letter targeted the firm’s manufacturing of misbranded drug products for OTC use. Cited in particular was the lack of warning and tamperevident packaging information for a handful of aspirin and cough/cold products. The GMP issues centered on lack of validation of the analytical methods used to confirm that products met specifications, and inadequate stability methods and justification of expiration dating – problems, FDA noted, that were highlighted also on the 2001 warning letter. Lab computer security and common use of individual passwords, maintenance of lab records, and supervisor training were other issues raised in the 2006 letter. The 2006 Neil Labs warning letter addressed the range of concerns that would motivate the recent injunction action against Patel’s operations. It also foreshadowed the unapproved drugs compliance policy guide nearing release at the time and set the pattern for the warning letters and injunction actions combining cGMP and approval non-compliance that have been characteristic since then. A month earlier in March, a similarly motivated injunction action led to the signing of a consent decree by St. Louis Missouri-based Rx drug manufacturer KV Pharmaceuticals and its ETHEX and Ther-Rx subsidiaries. The injunction likewise prevents KV and its officers from manufacturing and shipping drugs until both an independent expert and FDA officials conduct inspections of the facilities and certify that they are in compliance with regulations and the decree. It does provide that KV may request of FDA that it be permitted to resume manufacturing and distribution of certain products before the company is cleared to resume full operations. The decree specifies that it will remain in place until the defendants sustain continuous cGMP compliance and meet new drug approval requirements for six years. The immediate cause for the FDA injunction against KV was inspection findings between December and February that the company was significantly out of GMP compliance and was continuing to manufacture unapproved drugs. As a result of these inspections, KV recalled all products manufactured and distributed from its facilities. The decree specifies that KV would destroy the products recalled since May 2008. Like Advent’s, KV’s compliance problems extend back through the previous decade. KV received a GMP warning letter in 2000, focused on lab controls. Specifically of concern to FDA was the overwriting of test data entries and lack of supervisory review of raw material analytical data, which “resulted in acceptance and use of raw materials that failed to meet specifications.” Also of concern was the firm’s failure to take appropriate corrective action when several batches of a topical cream were found to be contaminated with foreign material. At the same time as Neil Labs in October 2002, KV also received a similarly-worded warning letter about marketing unapproved guaifenesin extended-release products. As in the Neil letter, FDA explained that it had not previously expended its “scarce enforcement resources to address such unapproved drugs,” but was motivated to take the guaifenesin action by the approval of an NDA for a guaifenesin extended-release tablet expectorant the previous July. In a May 2007 release, FDA announced that it was adding “timed-release” cough/cold drug products containing guaifenesin to its growing list of unapproved product class actions. FDA estimated that about 20 firms were implicated, and noted that only Adams Respiratory Therapeutics had obtained the requisite approval. Other companies, the release stated, will have 90 days to stop manufacturing and 180 days to cease shipping the products. Afterwards, companies will Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 5 International Pharmaceutical Quality have to have the required FDA approval or face regulatory action, the agency warned. KV found out in July 2008 that the warning was sincere when the agency informed the company it was seizing $24 million worth of unapproved KV drugs including guaifenesin extended-release combinations. The seizure followed an inspection in early 2008 of several of the company’s plants where FDA investigators found that the company was not complying with the 2007 enforcement notice and was continuing to market timed-release products containing guaifenesin as well as a variety of other unapproved new drugs, including narcotics and products for cough/cold, topical wound healing, skin bleaching, and gastrointestinal conditions. In explaining the seizure, FDA emphasized that approval for products in timed-released form is necessary as “improperly manufactured timed-release product may release the active ingredients too quickly, too slowly, or not at all, making the product unsafe or ineffective.” CDER Office of Compliance Director Autor stressed in the release that “FDA will take action against companies that continue to manufacture or market an unapproved product after the marketing or distribution cessation date.” She warned in addition that “when a company does not heed a cessation date relating to a specific product, the FDA will take enforcement action relating to the company’s other unapproved drugs.” As a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, KV has been more forthcoming about its consent decree. In a March release, KV pointed to the general marketing constraint until cGMP compliance was attained, adding that it would not distribute certain products, including its prenatal vitamins and hematinic products, until clearing FDA’s ANDA or NDA processes. KV’s Interim CEO David Van Vliet affirmed that the company had been “working diligently with the FDA for the last two months to reach agreement on a clear path forward to permit KV to resume manufacturing and marketing its products. Since December, when new management took over at KV, our team has taken significant steps to enhance our systems and procedures, and we will continue to do so.” An injunction action against Actavis Totowa, which reached the consent decree phase in December 2008, followed a very similar pattern to the KV and Advent cases in the confluence of GMP and drug approval non-compliance. Actavis Totowa has three New Jersey facilities – two in Totowa and one in Little Falls – and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Actavis, a generic pharmaceutical company based in Reykjavik, Iceland. Two of the New Jersey facilities do oraldose manufacturing and one is a packaging facility. FDA initially turned up the heat on Actavis Totowa with a warning letter issued in August 2006 addressing inspection findings earlier in the year regarding adverse drug experience (ADE) reporting. The letter highlights a cross section of FDA’s key concerns as it reviews a firm’s ADE practices. The letter starts by pointing to a handful of “potentially serious and unexpected drug events dating back to 1999 for products such as Digoxin, Phentermine and Phenazopyridine that were not reported to FDA.” The entry further maintains that the information in the reports it was submitting were not always complete or accurate; for example, regarding the previous condition of patients, concomitant medication, event recurrence and follow-up information obtained from patients and physicians. Nor was it submitting unexpected cases outlined in the published literature, FDA said. Paralleling the prominence the investigation of unexpected results and deviations has on the GMP side, the letter asserted that Actavis was not always investigating serious and unexpected ADE reports. Two cases in particular were cited where serious or fatal adverse events reported to the firm had not been followed up on as of the time of the inspection. Again paralleling the concern on the GMP side, FDA further maintained that Actavis was not reviewing all the ADE data to cull out the serious and unexpected cases for special action. Nor was it following procedures for submitting periodic safety reports, with the result noted that at least 26 ADEs had never been reported to FDA. A final entry focused on not having adequate procedures for investigating, completing, recording and evaluating the ADEs. In evaluating Actavis Totowa’s response to the inspection findings, the warning letter noted that several of the observed deficiencies were longstanding, and “there was no indication of how or why the lack of compliance was not identified by your firm and why it was allowed to continue for such an extended period of time.” FDA further questioned whether or not the firm had insight into this situation and was reviewing other regulatory requirements to assure compliance in those contexts. The letter then transitions to the finding during the inspec- ww w.ipqpubs.com 6 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality tion and other submitted information that Actavis was manufacturing “numerous prescription drugs without approved applications.” As in the cases of KV and Advent, a guaifenesin extended-release combination was among those specifically named. The letter proceeds to ask that Actavis provide a list of all drugs it was manufacturing with the ANDA number or “a statement describing the basis on which you claim for a new drug an exemption from the drug approval requirements” – an enforcement approach that effectively shifted the burden of proof from FDA to the firm. Actavis Totowa’s compliance difficulties continued in 2007 when it received another warning letter – this time focused on GMP deviations uncovered during an inspection in the summer of 2006 at its Little Falls, New Jersey facility. The warning letter, issued in February 2007, begins with the concern that is now front and center across FDA’s GMP enforcement activities – namely the investigation of process deviations and out-of-specification (OOS) test results. Of related concern was the uncovering at Actavis of OOS test results in laboratory raw data that were not documented in lab notebooks, and products that were “released based on retesting without any justification for discarding the initial out-of-specification test results.” The Actavis Totowa warning letter serves as a primer on FDA’s Guidance for Industry on “Investigating OOS Test Results for Pharmaceutical Production,” which had just been published in final form the previous October. Observed during the inspection, the letter states, were “numerous instances where manufacturing process deviations occurred and in-process specifications were not met, yet there is no indication that actions were taken promptly to investigate or correct the deviations and the products were approved for release and distribution by your quality control unit.” Additionally, “instances were noted where your firm’s quality control unit reviewed and approved test data and reports that were inaccurate and incomplete and as such did not follow established procedures.” Among specific examples cited in the letter were instances where analysts aborted and failed to complete chromatographic testing runs after an OOS test result was obtained. The OOS chromatographic data was not recorded in lab notebooks, and instead “a new sample preparation was injected within the same chromatographic run without supervisory approval,” in conflict with the firm’s OOS procedures. Similar examples were provided involving content uniformity, dissolution and impurity testing where original results were discarded without a documented justification. FDA also found “numerous discrepancies” between the electronic data files and documentation in laboratory notebooks. Further, the firms QCU was not found to be paying adequate attention to tablets that did not meet in-process specifications during tablet compression operations to avoid releasing OOS tablets. Instead, instances were cited where compression problems were recorded in investigation reports several weeks after they occurred. Other issues involved the identification and control of rejected in-process materials to prevent their later use, and inadequate procedures for conducting bulk holding time studies. FDA also found fault with Actavis’ cleaning validation studies and with the firm’s master and batch production and control records, which did not include complete procedures for documenting the collection of samples. Equipment qualification and procedures for maintaining manufacturing equipment were other areas of concern. The 2007 warning letter went on to explain why FDA was not satisfied with the corrective actions and “Quality System Improvement Plan” described in the firm’s response to the inspection findings. In its initial response, Actavis Totowa had disagreed with several specific observations listed on the August FDA483. However, the update report from Actavis in November stated that all observations listed on the 483 were “correct and constructive” and that the firm had identified the need for improvements in operational procedures and practices at the Little Falls, N.J. facility. FDA noted that it did not actually agree with the original assertions that certain of the observations listed on the 483 were not accurate. The letter acknowledges that Actavis’ correspondence did “appear to adequately address many of the cGMP deviations found” during the mid-summer inspection. However, FDA expressed concern about the quality of the drug products released from the facility “under the serious lack of cGMP controls found during the inspection.” The firm’s response, the agency said, “provides no assurance that the records and conditions of manufacturing and testing of each lot of drug products released and marketed by your firm will be evaluated to assure that the released drug products” meet standards. Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 7 International Pharmaceutical Quality The letter foreshadows the consent decree in advising Actavis Totowa to seek third party help. “We feel that to provide such assurance, your firm should promptly initiate an audit program by a third party having appropriate cGMP expertise to provide assurance that all marketed lots of drug products that remain within expiration have their appropriate identify, strength, quality and purity.” The warning letter goes on to require of Actavis within 15 working days to provide “a written list of all released lots of finished drug products that remain within expiration date that are associated with any out-of-specification test results during their manufacture” as well as “a brief description of the actions taken to insure that the lots were suitable for release.” Pushing FDA further toward the injunction mode was an inspection between March and May 2008 of Actavis’ Riverview Drive facility in Totowa. FDA again found “significant cGMP violations” and that Actavis was continuing to manufacture unapproved drugs. The inspection resulted in Actavis Totowa recalling all products manufactured and distributed from its three facilities. As in the KV case, the consent decree specifies that Actavis destroy the recalled product. Following the normal injunction pattern, the company can resume operations only after an expert certifies that the drugs comply with the cGMP requirements and have FDA approval, and the agency inspects to confirm compliance. Among the list of about three dozen unapproved oral drug products manufactured by Actavis associated with the injunction action were guaifenesin combinations, vitamin combinations and oxycodone and hydrocodone-containing narcotics. In a release following the signing of the December, 2008 consent decree, Actavis Totowa’s parent company stressed that the injunction only affected Actavis’ operations at the New Jersey facilities. Noting that distribution would be halted until the enumerated GMP requirements were met and follow-up FDA inspections were passed, Actavis expressed optimism that commercial production at the Totowa facilities would resume “shortly.” “We have been working with the FDA to address compliance issues at the Totowa facilities,” Actavis’ Chief Legal Officer John LaRocca indicated in the release. “We have an entirely new management team in place at Little Falls and have invested significantly to reinforce systems and procedures intended to better ensure robust, sustainable compliance.” He added that the agreement with FDA was “a positive step” and “one we have looked forward to reaching. We will continue to work with the FDA to show that we have addressed all of the agency’s compliance and manufacturing issues.” Actavis explained that prior to reaching the agreement, PAREXEL had been engaged to assess the Actavis Totowa facilities and that the consulting firm would continue to work with Actavis Totowa to facilitate ongoing compliance with the consent decree. Actavis made good on its prediction that product reintroduction would begin in a relatively short timeframe. In mid-April, the company announced the reintroduction to the market by its Actavis Totowa subsidiary of oxycodone 15 mg and 30 mg tablet products. Based on a recently completed FDA inspection, Oxycodone was the first product cleared by the agency for release from the company’s Little Falls, N.J. facility since the product-wide recall in August 2008. Subsequent inspections, as outlined in the decree, will follow, the firm said. “Through an extensive process, Actavis re-qualified all equipment and utilities for production and packaging – and we re-qualified and revalidated all methods used to release products from our Totowa facilities,” the firm’s VP of Quality Compliance and Technical Services Nasrat Hakim explained. Actavis’ CEO Doug Boothe added that oxycodone is one of the many products the company “will have back on the market in the coming months.” FDA 2006 Compliance Policy Guide Spurs Injunctions Injunction activity involving both GMP and drug approval non-compliance intensified in the second half of 2006 following the release of FDA’s unapproved drugs compliance policy guide and the launching of the accompanying enforcement initiative. In most cases, these injunctions have involved across-theboard recalls of the “adulterated,” unapproved and misbranded products recently made in the implicated facilities. In turn, the imposed hurdles to resume manufacturing and marketing are, in the main, superimposable. In August 2006, a consent decree following the pattern was signed by Syntho Pharmaceuticals and Intermax Pharmaceuticals and their mutual officers located on Long Island, New York. The unapproved products named in the decree included guaifenesin combos and several other cough/cold and pain relief products. ww w.ipqpubs.com 8 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality Brainerd, Minnnesota-based Canfield, a manufacturer of drug products used in dentistry, agreed to a consent decree a few months later in the same cGMP/unapproved product mold. Included in the injunction were unapproved dental products for “dry socket,” a condition in which the socket does not heal properly following the extraction of a tooth, available nationwide through dental practices. In a release explaining the consent decree, FDA underscored the warning in the CPQ on unapproved drugs that the agency may focus its enforcement on products which, in addition to lacking required approval, violate other parts of the FDC Act. Canfield, the release states, “has not corrected its cGMP violations – which include releasing products for distribution without proper testing and failing to conduct studies to determine appropriate expiration dates – despite repeated inspections, efforts, and warnings by the agency advising the firm of significant compliance deviations that require prompt corrective action.” The release quotes then CDER Director Steven Galson in stressing that “unapproved drugs and drugs that do not meet cGMP requirements are a public health concern because they may not satisfy quality standards, or standards for safety, effectiveness and labeling.” In turn, Galson added, “confronting these issues through enforcement actions and other strategies is a key part of FDA’s comprehensive drug safety efforts.” Springfield, Missouri-based Vita-Erb, a manufacturer of medicated shampoos, pain relieving gels, antimicrobial hand cleansers, and a liquid herbal-extract drug product, was enjoined in November, 2006. The injunction order explains that FDA had conducted eight inspections of Vita-Erb since 1997, most recently in October 2005. “During each of these inspections,” the order states, “FDA documented many of the same or similar cGMP violations that were observed during the most recent inspection.” The finding of significant cGMP deviations had resulted in warning letters following a December 1997 inspection and an April/May 2002 inspection. Canfield had promised corrective action to address the issues raised on the various 483s and warning letters, the order notes. FDA also issued a warning letter to Vita-Erb in April 2004 addressing the manufacture of unapproved/misbranded drugs. Follow-up investigation by FDA, the injunction order states, showed that the firm had subsequently introduced an unapproved pain-relieving gel and was marketing the herbal extract drug product named in the warning letter under another name. In December 2006, FDA announced its class action against unapproved drugs containing quinine, and provided an update on its six-month old unapproved drugs initiative. A key health concern motivating the action against quinine, an antimalarial, was its widespread use in treating leg cramps – a use for which risks outweigh the benefits, CDER’s Galson commented in the release. The unapproved products, FDA explained, did not contain the extensive warnings regarding serious adverse events associated with quinine use, potentially serious interactions with other drugs, and the conditions under which quinine should and should not be used, nor were safe dosing levels established. Only one quinine drug product, Mutual Pharmaceutical’s Qualaquin, had been FDA-approved as an antimalarial treatment with the appropriate cautionary labeling. Noting the issuing of several warning letters and the injuncttions filed in federal courts, FDA stressed in the release that it expected to “further accelerate its enforcement efforts against marketed unapproved drugs in 2007. The release also highlighted the “very large number of registrants” for the upcoming January workshop intended to businesses on how to steer products through the drug application and OTC monograph processes. This “tremendous response to the workshop” is encouraging, CDER Compliance Office Director Autor stated, and provides “a clear indication that manufacturers are heeding our warning to bring unapproved drugs into compliance.” “The presence of unapproved drugs on the U.S. market is in stark contrast to our current approach to drug safety because those drugs may not meet modern standards for safety, effectiveness, quality, and labeling,” Acting Commissioner Von Eschenbach commented in the release. “As part of our drug safety efforts, we are committed to ensuring all marketed drugs have the required FDA approval.” Rising to the injunction level in the 2007-2008 period were GMP/unapproved drug enforcement actions against PharmaFab and Scientific Laboratories. A consent decree was signed with Grande Prairie, Texasbased PharmaFab in April 2007. The company at the time was a major manufacturer and distributor of more than 100 different Rx and OTC drug products, including cough/cold, ulcer and postpartum hemorrhage products. As for Actavis Totowa, a key GMP area of FDA concern at PharmaFab was the lack of investigation of manufacturing Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 9 International Pharmaceutical Quality failures. Other GMP issues behind the injunction were not recording and justifying deviations from written manufacturing procedures, lack of an effective QC unit and failing to establish reliable expiration dates for products. Unapproved drugs cited in the action included several cough/cold extended/sustained release products. A consent decree also following the pattern was concluded with Scientific Laboratories, located in Columbia, Maryland, in May 2008. The company is a contract manufacturer and distributor of various Rx cough/cold products. After warning the firm, FDA took the injunction route when it found that GMP problems remained uncorrected and marketing of some unapproved cough/cold suspension and liquid formulations was continuing. Implement ICH Q8-10 And Save On Compliance At the University of Georgia’s annual International GMP Conference in Athens, Georgia in March, CDER Office of Compliance Deputy Director Joseph Famulare and Atlanta District Senior Compliance Officer Philip Campbell both highlighted the prominence of the unapproved drugs effort in the recent FDA enforcement data. In a presentation at the conference on recent enforcement trends, Campbell noted his surprise to find the significant percentage of warning letters that included the distribution of unapproved drugs. The message in this data, he stressed, is that “if we come out to your firm and find that you are distributing unapproved new drugs and we find GMP deficiencies, the likelihood of your receiving a warning letter goes up pretty significantly.” The oversight of unapproved drugs “is not something that we enter into lightly,” Campbell commented, pointing out that “requiring the appropriate GMPs, the appropriate approval for a drug product, ultimately leads to higher cost as an unfortunate consequence.” But for both counterfeit and unapproved drugs, he said, “we don’t have any knowledge about any testing that may or may not have gone on with respect to the safety of that product even though it may be a product that has been around for a long time.” FDA knows that “people are very married” to some of these old products, “but if there are reasons for us to believe that they are unsafe, and [since] we have not had an opportunity to look at the procedures that are used to manufacture them to know whether they are really safe in the iteration that they are being presented, we have a responsibility to look at them. And unfortunately, when another drug company does the right thing and goes through all the processes and gets the approval, it costs them. So in effect it raises the cost of the product. It is an unfortunate consequence, but one we feel is necessary to make sure that the public is getting a product that is safe.” The focus on unapproved drugs in recent GMP-related injunction actions is particularly noteworthy in the context of the limited number of injunctions FDA has pursued recently. Campbell remarked that “the most surprising statistic” that he found in his review for the Georgia presentation was that only five injunctions were issued in FY 2008 across all districts and commodities, compared to a normal baseline of about a dozen. Only one was issued for drugs during that timeframe, which focused on GMPs and unapproved drugs (Scientific Laboratories), as have the few drug injunctions issued since, he pointed out. As he reviewed these recent drug injunction cases, what “struck” Campbell was their compliance history. “All of them involved a series of violative inspections on the part of the agency. In fact, one of them had had six questionable inspections since 2005. There also was a history of repeated warnings from the agency in our attempts to try to work this out on a voluntary basis. It involved the 483s. It involved meetings at the district office. It involved warning letters – in one instance, multiple warning letters, which we are not supposed to be doing. But there was a very clear pattern. At the end of these numerous attempts to try and work it out, we had to go to more stringent action, which was the injunction.” Discussing their infrequent use recently, Campbell emphasized that injunction actions take a lot of work on behalf of the agency – are “very resource intensive” – and “nobody likes these things.” “We beg you to come in to the district office and discuss these issues. We send you warning letters. It gets to the point that we enjoin folks that just won’t get it for whatever reason. They are not interested in getting it or they don’t have a clue as to what the expectations are…. If you ever find yourself in the position of being enjoined, you really have nobody to blame but yourself, because we certainly have made every effort to work it out in other ways.” At a session at the UGA conference on process validation under the new quality regulatory paradigm, CDER compliance official Famulare also noted the amount of work injunctions entail and that they are pursued only ww w.ipqpubs.com 10 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality as a last resort after other voluntary approaches have repeatedly not born fruit. He also stressed the unapproved drug component of the recent GMP-related actions. Without naming the company involved, Famulare cited the circumstances around the KV injunction as a just-enacted case study. He highlighted a stipulation in the judge’s injunction order, in particular, as providing insight into the growing quality-by-design (QbD) regulatory emphasis and the emerging lifecycle validation thinking. The order stipulates that the “defendant shall establish and follow scientific product development and manufacturing process design procedures at all facilities to control all significant variables, including material attributes and processing parameters, affecting the process materials and final drug product specifications and quality attributes.” The recent injunction, Famulare said, is one example of what can happen when firms are processing multiple products not in a state of control. These legal enforcement actions, “have as their central core the lack of process validation and many related issues that go into that including the development, the science, the technology, the use of investigations, handling of deviations, etc.” The CDER compliance official expanded further on the linkage between the recent drug injunction actions and the value of implementing the new ICH Q8-10 paradigm at an ISPE conference in Washington, D.C. in early June. He discussed the injunctions as case studies in the failure of the quality system and the costs of not implementing the ICH guidelines through the product lifecycle. [Editor’s Note: Famulare’s incisive analysis at the ISPE conference of the recent GMP/unapproved drug injunction actions in the context of the ICH quality system principles and the cost of non-compliance is provided in Appendix IV of this issue.] Warning Letters Reveal FDA Hot Buttons Campbell noted that the number of product seizures has similarly been at an historical low point over the last two years, with only six recorded in 2007 and eight in 2008. CDER was involved in five of the eight. Three of these involved dietary supplements containing an unapproved drug, and another a cosmetic product with an unapproved drug that can cause optic nerve damage. The most significant seizure in 2008, the field official pointed out, was that of $24 million in unapproved drugs en route to an injunction (KV Pharmaceuticals). The only seizure coming to Campbell’s attention in FY 2009 as of mid-March involved heparin contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS) – a substance that mimics heparin’s anticoagulant activity. In November, U.S. marshals seized 11 lots of heparin from Cincinnati-based Celsus Laboratories. The heparin had been manufactured from material imported from China. Since the serious adverse events and deaths from OSCScontaminated heparin began to surface in early 2008, FDA has put in place a comprehensive inspection and import controls program and has acted to remove from the market heparin materials and products contaminated with OSCS (IPQ, May/June 2008). The seized Celsus heparin – which had entered the U.S. before the establishment of import controls for the drug – was tested for the presence of OSCS as part of this FDA initiative. To date, the effort has prompted 13 recalls of multiple contaminated medical products containing heparin from several companies. FDA had informed Celsus during an April 2008 inspection and again in a follow-up letter the following month that the company’s actions to notify customers about a contaminant in its heparin were insufficient to assure an effective recall. FDA advised customers of Celsus not to use the contaminated heparin product and notified Japanese, Canadian, Australian, European Union (EU), and other international authorities of related shipments. In reviewing the warning letter component of FDA’s enforcement activity, Campbell affirmed that they remain an effective tool, involving notifying top management of significant problems in the effort to work things out on a voluntary basis. Across centers, there were 445 warning letters issued in FY 2008, compared to the eight seizures and five injunctions. There are more warning letters being issued for devices than drugs. One factor is that the field recommendations for drugs have to be cleared through CDER at headquarters. If the CDER compliance staff can’t be convinced by the field office that the warning letter “is a good use of the agency’s limited resources, than it is not going to be approved,” Campbell pointed out. Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 11 International Pharmaceutical Quality “They have clearly raised the bar as to what it will take to trigger the issuance of a drug GMP warning letter – there is no question about that. The expectation is, once it gets issued, that the district will closely monitor these warning letters and work with the firms involved to make sure they are implementing the corrective actions that they need to and we are scheduling the inspections in a timely manner.” In preparing for the presentation, Campbell conducted an “unofficial” review of warning letters issued domestically addressing GMP concerns between November 2007 and December 2008 to see where attention was focused. Production record review (CFR 211.192), which encompasses the failure to react to OOS results, appeared most frequently, cited in 17, or two-thirds of the letter cohort. Closely following was lab controls, cited in 16. Written procedures and the quality control unit were the next in the order, followed by in-process testing and production/ process control. Campbell noted that all six of these categories were also on the top ten sites on the 483s issued, “so there were no surprises here.” The seventh most common cited observation in the warning letter cohort, the testing and control of components, did catch Campbell’s attention. At issue here, he explained, is the adequate testing of incoming components themselves, verification of certificates of analysis and, in general, establishing the adequacy of suppliers. “So it is obviously something we are already starting to look at over the last year,” he remarked. In preparing his presentation, Campbell also informally surveyed field drug investigators on issues they are especially concerned with. Data integrity emerged as a front runner concern. The issue “just will not go away, which is very surprising to me because it is the most damaging observation that we can make against your firm,” Campbell commented. It involves the “improper handling of failures by the firm – the role of management in those decisions. Is it a culture that causes this, or a lab supervisor that decided to do it on his own?” Data integrity issues, he noted, cut “across all commodities that we regulate,” including food and device firms. Another related concern highlighted in the survey was how a firm responds to out-of-spec and out-of-trend results. At issue is “the ignoring of these results, the failure to investigate, the failure to respond.” Key questions, Campbell said, include “who is involved in the reporting chain of these out- of-spec results? Who from management is involved in these decisions? Are they involved?” Supplier issues were also highlighted, which “obviously is a big deal” in today’s complex supply chain environment, Campbell pointed out. Investigators also expressed particular concern with firms that are transferring products into a facility and not really doing due diligence before they ramp up production and start distributing these products. “We expect more of this to occur as firms downsize and products are bought and sold,” Campbell commented. “If you are bringing a new product into your facility that you purchased from somebody else, take a very close look at the initial validation work that was done on that product,” the field compliance officer advised. “When you start manufacturing it for the first time in your facility, make sure you are aware of any unexpected out-of-trend or out-of-spec results. Is it really responding as it was supposed to respond? Is it performing as it was supposedly performing during the initial validation? Be very sensitive to those changes that are unexpected and make sure that you do an adequate investigation for any out-of-trend or out-of-spec results that you see during that period of time.” GMPs, Application Integrity Cited at Ranbaxy The FDA investigator concerns reported by Campbell at the UGA conference intersect in the enforcement action FDA has been involved with at India-based Ranbaxy Laboratories. Ranbaxy’s compliance problems with the agency worsened in September 2008 when it received a pair of warning letters from FDA’s compliance office addressing GMP problems at its Dewas and Paonta Sahib plants in India. In a release on the warning letters, FDA announced that “because of the extent and nature of the violations,” the agency was issuing an “import alert” under which any API or sterile and non-sterile finished drug products manufactured at the facilities may be detained at the U.S. border. Over 30 different generic drugs were implicated. The Dewas warning letter does provide for an exception in the case of the firm’s ganciclovir API, due to Ranbaxy being the sole source supplier. The terms of continued import, the agency explained, would have to be discussed and “would likely include third-party supervision and verification of each batch prior to release.” ww w.ipqpubs.com 12 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality FDA said that its compliance office would also recommend denial of approval of any NDA or ANDA listing the plants as the manufacturer of APIs or finished drug products. processing was involved] and the firm’s responses,” and led FDA to the conclusion that warning letters were the appropriate response. The release announced that the agency’s action did not involve removing products from the market, since FDA did not have hard evidence to date that the products already shipped by Ranbaxy were defective. Nor were products from other Ranbaxy facilities impacted, since “FDA has inspected those facilities and to date, they have met U.S. cGMP requirements for drug manufacturing.” The warning letter on the Dewas facility documented a variety of concerns involving aseptic practice, contamination prevention, and media fills, as well as inadequate investigation of sterility failures in API batches and of release spec failures in non-sterile product batches. The warning letter issued regarding Ranbaxy’s Dewas facility reflected the findings from an inspection conducted by FDA in early 2008. The findings involved “significant” GMP problems in the plant’s manufacturing and control of sterile and non-sterile finished products and APIs. Areas of concern in the letter included: • the facility’s betalactam containment program, which appeared inadequate to assure against cross-contamination • inadequate batch production and control records • inadequate failure investigations, and • inadequate aseptic processing operations. The deficiencies found during an inspection in March 2008 at the Paonta Sahib facility and referenced in that warning letter related to the manufacturing of mostly finished oral solid finished dosage forms. They involved: • lack of assurance that responsible individuals were overseeing GMP steps • inaccurate written records of equipment cleaning and use • incomplete batch production and control records, and • inadequate procedures for the review and approval of production and control records. FDA’s response to the findings at the Paonto Sahib facility was heightened by the facility’s previous record of GMP noncompliance. The agency had already issued a warning letter to the Paonto Sahib plant in June 2006 citing significant deficiencies related to its stability testing program. Included in the findings were the failure to maintain complete records of data related to stability sample testing, and deficiencies related to storage, inventory management, and testing of stability samples at defined intervals. In April and May 2008, Ranbaxy submitted lengthy written responses to the recent inspection findings. The warning letter release notes that the agency evaluated its findings, Ranbaxy’s responses, and the firm’s overall inspectional history. The evaluation “required substantial time due to the complex scientific and technical nature of both the identified deficiencies, particularly at the Dewas site [where aseptic In the aseptic area, the deviation investigation concerns involved inadequate confirmation of the root cause, the accuracy of the batch records and investigation report, and the assessment of environmental and personnel monitoring sample results. FDA was also concerned that the firm’s response did not address how the investigation of the API batch sterility failures would be completed to assure the identification of the root cause and CAPA implementation, and which controls would be implemented to ensure the completeness and accuracy of the report data. For the non-sterile product investigations, the concern was the lack of records identifying the assignable cause and the implementation of corrective measures. FDA further noted that the actual weights and measures of a specific excipient were not documented and that the lack of this information prevented verification that the correct amounts of excipients were dispensed for the two failed lots in question. Incomplete discrepancy investigations were also at issue in the warning letter on the Paonto Sahib facility. The central issue there, though, involved invalid signoffs on equipment cleaning and production and control records where the required supervisory review/ oversight had not taken place. During the March 2008 inspection, the warning letter points out, FDA’s inspection team “documented numerous instances where persons or supervisors reportedly verifying equipment cleaning activities or supervising or checking significant manufacturing steps were not present at the… facility on the dates or times that these activities occurred.” FDA asked for an explanation from Ranbaxy “why your firm’s quality control unit did not detect and document these deficiencies during their batch production and control record review and what actions will be taken to assure these deficiencies do not extend to other batches of the same or other drug products manufactured at the Paonta Sahib facility and Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 13 International Pharmaceutical Quality FDA’S VIEW OF RANBAXY’S DEWAS ASEPTIC OPERATIONS IN 2008 After pointing to a variety of specific deficiencies in aseptic practices, the September 2008 warning letter on Ranbaxy’s Dewas facility provided a succinct summary of FDA’s view of the plant’s design and operations. The summary indicates that the plant’s return to cGMP compliance would not involve a quick fix. The discussion speaks to the QbD and lifecycle process validation concepts FDA is seeking to foster. We are concerned that your aseptic operations are conducted under extensive steps, manual handling, and inadequate equipment usage…. For example, manual operations under aseptic conditions should be conducted with minimum operator intervention and no exposed critical surfaces and product. Therefore, it is not appropriate to try to overcome major flaws in clean room design and equipment by attempting to validate difficult to perform, intensive manual procedures. These manual practices have the potential to increase the risk of contamination on critical surfaces and are considered inadequate manufacturing practices which can not be justified nor validated. Furthermore, design concepts and use of contemporary equipment and automation technologies should be explored and assessed for suitability to prevent unnecessary activities that could increase the potential for introducing contaminants into the aseptic environment. We recommend that you conduct an extensive evaluation of your facilities for opportunities to minimize steps and manual handling. Additionally, appropriate equipment and usage in all related aseptic operations for APIs and finished dosage forms should be evaluated. Please provide this evaluation in your response showing improvements to current operations.” to improve the QCU’s handling of such issues.” The letter then stresses that these recordkeeping deficiencies “heighten our concerns regarding the conduct, adequacy, and oversight of the quality system at the Paonto Sahib site; in particular, the integrity and reliability of records for equipment cleaning and batch production and control.” FDA did not let its concern drop, but continued its investigations into the situation at Paonto Sahib that extended into the integrity of its application filings. In February 2009, the agency announced its conclusion that the facility had “falsified data and test results in approved and pending drug applications,” and that its investigation was ongoing. Also at issue were “certain drugs manufactured in the U.S. that relied on data from the Paonta Sahib facility. The release explained that in addressing the falsified data, “the FDA has invoked its Application Integrity Policy (AIP) against the Paonta Sahib facility.” Under its AIP, FDA asked Ranbaxy to cooperate with the agency to resolve the questions of data integrity and reliability and to implement a “corrective action operation plan,” (CAOP) which would include a third-party independent audit of applications associated with Paonta Sahib. Implementing the AIP means that FDA stops all substantive scientific review of new or pending applications that contain data generated by the facility. The agency again reaffirmed, however, that it did not have evidence that products manufactured at the facility did “not meet their quality specifications” or presented health risks. As part of the mandated CAOP, Ranbaxy has hired a third party to review the integrity issues raised by FDA and develop a report back to the agency. The firm stresses that the AIP applies only to the Paonta Sahib-related applications. OOS Investigations, Records At Issue Abroad Altogether, nine of the 43 drug GMP warning letters issued by FDA during 2008 and 2009 through May involved facilities outside the U.S. Four of these plants were located in China, two in India and one each in Japan, France and the U.K. (see Appendix II). The foreign warning letters for human drugs are issued directly by the Office of Compliance’s Division of Manufacturing and Product Quality, under the direction of Richard Friedman. The other Indian firm receiving a warning letter was Lupin Ltd. located in Bhopal. The letter was issued in May 2009 addressing the findings at a late 2008 inspection of the firm’s sterile and non-sterile dosage form and sterile API operations. As at the Ranbaxy facilities, recordkeeping as well as contamination controls were central concerns raised in the Bhopal context. ww w.ipqpubs.com 14 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality FDA found “numerous boxes” of production, control and distribution records awaiting destruction, which were found to contain at least some records less than a year old. Also implicated were log books from 2006-2007 containing information related to equipment usage and system functioning which need to be retained, the letter points out. The letter asks for “further explanation as to the reason for their planned destruction and which other production-related documents are destroyed under” the firm’s policy. equipment and cleaning procedures, and • did not have an adequate vendor qualification program. The investigation indicated that the OSCS contamination stemmed from the raw materials Changzhou was purchasing for its bulk heparin manufacturing. Discrepancies in information provided during the inspection was also at issue. Lupin’s corporate quality management had explained during the inspection that the Bhopal plant had no involvement with Lupin’s Mandideep production facility, yet 20 boxes containing Mandideep plant documents were observed at the Bhopal site. The letter asks Lupin to explain the discrepancy. These involved the manufacturing relationship between Shanghai No. 1 Biochemical & Pharmaceutical Co., located in Shanghai, and Qingdao Jiulong Biopharmaceuticals, located in Jiashou City. The warning letters were based on inspection of the two sites in August 2008. The contamination control issues included personnel monitoring and smoke study performance, media fill documentation, building cleanliness, and vial reject handling. The facility’s failure investigations also raised some concern. A related issue was Lupin’s contention during the inspection and in responding to the 483 that QA monthly reports are internal reports not subject to GMP requirements and are “used as a management tool only.” The letter notes that the reports include information such as testing summaries, OOS results, audits, complaints, and changes implemented and are used by corporate management to apprise them of potential adverse quality trends. The FDA compliance office states in the warning letter that it had reviewed the information collected and agreed with the inspection team that the QA monthly reports are subject to GMP requirements. Heparin API manufacturing was the FDA inspection target at three of the four Chinese API facilities that have received warning letters since the beginning of 2008. A warning letter was issued to Changzhou SPL in April 2008 based on FDA’s investigation into the heparin crisis and Baxter’s supply chain (IPQ, May/June 2008). Changzhou was the manufacturer and supplier for Wisconsin-based Scientific Protein Labs, which in turn was supplying Baxter with the heparin API found to be contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS). The warning letter to Changzhou cited investigation findings that the firm: • was not adequately evaluating the effectiveness of its impurity removal process • had not verified USP methods in actual use • had inadequately qualified its FDA’s ongoing investigation into the heparin supply chain resulted in two more warning letters being issued a year later in April 2009. Basically, FDA found that Qingdao Jiulong was serving as an undeclared “shadow factor” for the Shanghai company – a situation that agency compliance officials have been cautioning about in managing the international supply chain (IPQ, Nov./Dec. 2008) The inspection evidence indicated that Shanghai “did not appear to have ever manufactured” heparin sodium for the U.S. market, contrary to what the firm had declared in its drug master file (DMF), and that Qingdao Jiulong had served as a subcontractor since 2001. The submission of the untrue statements to FDA meant that the agency did not have the opportunity to inspect the Qingdao facility. Shanghai had only identified Qingdao as an “alternate” manufacturing site in 2008, the warning letter noted. According to the Shanghai letter, the investigators also “found that the manufacturers’ labels had been removed from the 5 kg bags during the repackaging operation and the bags were placed inside aluminum drums used to ship the heparin sodium to the U.S.; the bags were then sealed and identified with the Shanghai No. 1 label.” The letter added that although 148 lots of this heparin sodium were shipped to the U.S., “we note that no drug products made with these lots have been marketed in the U.S. at this time.” GMP issues were also raised by FDA at Shanghai. The inspection found that the firm lacked lab testing records for heparin released from the facility to the U.S., and that Shanghai had not adhered to its DMF commitment to perform the tests reported on its Certificate of Analysis. Inadequate deviation investigations – in this case, involving Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 15 International Pharmaceutical Quality the OSCS contamination – was also at issue. “Although your firm quarantined some of the contaminated material apparently produced by Qingdao Jiulong in 2008, you permitted at least 19 lots to be shipped to the U.S.,” the letter states. “In addition, your firm failed to conduct an investigation into the cause of this repeated, unacceptable contamination. Instead, you requested that Qingdao Jiulong investigate the contamination, although the product was repackaged and relabeled at your facility.” Nor did FDA’s companion inspection of Qingdao Jiulong go smoothly. Again, the investigation of the OSCS contamination was a central GMP concern. The facility did not show that it had investigated the contamination problem and FDA did not find the quality systems in place to assure against such contamination, including those for batch quality reviews and investigations. In the letter, FDA requested “complete product quality review reports covering the manufacturing of heparin sodium for all lots that remain within expiration” and spelled out exactly what such reports should cover. Deviation investigation concerns were also central in the warning letters to foreign API manufacturers Tomita Pharmaceutical Co. (Naruto-City, Japan) and Synkem (Chenove Cedex, France) and to injectable product manufacturer Dabur Oncology (Bordon, U.K.). The focus of the warning letter to Dabur issued in April 2009 was the investigation of out-of-limit (OOL) environmental monitoring samples collected from isolators used in the production of injectable paclitaxel and OOS results from inprocess assay testing of process validation samples taken for injectable methotrexate. With regard to the firm’s deviation investigations, FDA noted instances where the root cause was determined to be analytical error. “We expect that any analytical error be fully documented, and that without a definite root cause determination, the original OOS results would be considered to be legitimate and would be included as part of the decision to release the associated batch,” FDA stressed. Other issues raised in the Dabur Oncology letter involved equipment maintenance, visual inspection procedures, isolator and lab equipment qualification, lab record signoff and QC unit record review. Attribution of OOS results to laboratory error without adequate confirmation and closing out investigations short of proving the root cause were also addressed in the May 2009 warning letter to French non-sterile API manufacturer Synkem along with other investigation and CAPA-response shortcomings. FDA noted that it had found similar deficiencies related to OOS investigations and the lack of corrections during a May 2000 inspection. 75% of Warning Letters Cite OOS Investigations Altogether, 33 of the 43 drug GMP warning letters issued in 2008 and 2009 through May have specifically cited inadequacies in the firm’s investigation of manufacturing and product nonconformances. In many of these, deviation/OOS investigations were a primary focal point. The investigation issue is squarely on the front burner in EU regulator inspections as well. Discussing recent MHRA inspection findings within and outside the U.K at a conference sponsored by the University of Rhode Island (URI) in late March, British medicines Health Agency (MHRA) Senior GMP Inspector Andrew Hopkins noted that inadequate and untimely investigations are an “incredibly common” finding. [Editor’s Note: Hopkin’s insights on the top MHRA inspection findings are provided in Appendix I of this issue. He cites the deficiencies being found in key problem areas and offers advice on MHRA GMP expectations and viable compliance approaches.] “The first day of the inspection we will ask to see deviations lists and then we will start picking them out,” he explained. “When we look at investigations systems [and there is a] nonconformance, we expect to see a robust investigation. We expect it to be done in a timely manner.” What that means, Hopkins continued, is that “first of all you have to have a system where you do that critical assessment almost straight away” on how likely it is to affect product either being manufactured or on the market. “You can then do your triage, and say, ‘okay, it is quite a low level – we are going to take a couple of months to close that one out. It is high level – we need to do it in a couple of days.’” The lack of regular management review of these quality indicators is a related recurrent citation, Hopkins said. Firms should have an organized system for deviations that tracks and trends root causes and overdues and flags problems for senior management’s attention. Management can then respond with the support or emphasis needed to fix them. ww w.ipqpubs.com 16 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality “Quite often,” the MHRA inspector said, the investigation reports are “three-liners where people haven’t really considered the full impact of what they are looking at. What was the root cause? What are they going to do about it? If you don’t assess the root cause, how can you possibly fix the problem?” He advised companies as a training process and “good learning curve” before inspectors arrive to sit down with the managers of the various departments and go through the deficiencies and ask the questions the inspector would ask. “Because once people have been through that pain” of the investigation scenario “it is a lot easier to understand what you actually need to get written down.” Hopkins emphasized that the MHRA uses FDA’s guidance on OOS investigations, since it is “probably the best guidance document that is out there” on the subject. Manufacturers should “make sure your OOS system follows that,” he advised. He further suggested that when contract labs are being used, to “make sure you know which OOS system they are following. Are they following yours or are they following their own?” Also, “make sure they notify you of non-valid OOSs. So if it turns out to be a lab error, make sure they let you know about it and why.” This leap to attributing OOS results to lab error with no thought given to the potential for manufacturing error to be involved is something investigators often see, he cautioned. “Be careful you don’t get taken down the route of it is always lab error.” Industry consultant Debra Pagano, a former top FDA drug investigator and preapproval manager, commented at the URI meeting that firms should also pay attention to OOS results in preparing for preapproval inspection reviews. Check to see whether or not deviations found on development batches apply to the pending product, and be prepared to share that knowledge with investigators asking questions about them, she advised. those very carefully.” The former FDA field manager echoed Hopkins at the URI meeting in recommending that firms incorporate into their inspection preparation programs an investigator-type scrutiny of their deviation management programs. Davis cautioned, however, that improving the quality of investigations in the quality system is not something that can be done at the last minute, but involves thinking about each one and getting it right before sign-off. “You can’t do it a month before the inspection,” he said. Good investigations need to be “an everyday process.” [Editor’s Note: As Mid-Atlantic Region Director and head of FDA’s policy-setting field drug committee, Davis was actively involved in developing agency policy on OOS investigations. His presentation on the elements of a good investigation program and its importance in being prepared for regulatory inspections is included as Appendix I in the March/April issue of IPQ.] To Err Is Human, But Not GMP In upgrading deviation investigation systems, regulators are now looking for firms to apply a more QbD/CAPA perspective, incorporating human factors analysis and a deeper understanding of the flaws in the quality system out of which the operator errors stem. They caution about routinely blaming the deviations on human error and then simply applying retraining as the fix without understanding the systemic factors involved. Human error is the most repeated deviation root cause and retaining the individual the most common corrective action, Davis commented. However he noted, “a lot of companies now are finally getting to the point of trying to figure out what is causing human error.” Industry consultant Richard Davis stressed that inprocess test results need to be taken seriously as well. “There is a reason why people are making mistakes. It can be the complexity of the manufacturing or the function that you are asking them to perform. It can be lack of training and knowledge or experience. It can be the clarity of the instructions,” Davis pointed out. Davis noted that he has been seeing more FDA 483 observations recently that talk about in-process controls and not paying attention to in-process test failures. Disregarding this data when passing finished product testing is not acceptable, he said. “We need to make sure that if we have in-process variability and manufacturing process failures, we address “We have designed features and functions in our companies [where] there is no way that somebody can perform this function correctly every time. So when we are looking at human error we have to start getting below that first cut. We know that a mistake was made. We need to understand why, and we need to start addressing them.” Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 17 International Pharmaceutical Quality Investigation programs and the tolerance for deviations provides a clear barometer of a firm’s culture, Davis stressed, and improving that culture needs to happen from the top down through supervisory intervention. Rodriquez discussed the provisions related to experience and training of employees, supervisors and consultants in 21 CFR 211 of the GMPs as well as the training-related guidance in ICH’s API guideline Q7A, Q9 and FDA’s quality systems guideline. The former FDA field manager summed up his advice for improving deviation investigations and reports: “Address the repeated deviation events and repeated root causes, start trying to find real, sustainable and effective corrective actions – and believe me FDA looks at this very carefully – and then effectively reduce and control human error. A “very key issue,” the FDA investigator pointed out, is the provision in 211.25(c) that there be “an adequate number of qualified personnel” both to perform and supervise the operation. At the March University of Georgia GMP Conference, FDA National Drug Expert Investigator Rebeca Rodriquez gave an insightful presentation on the role of training in the success of a quality system, in which she explored the human factors theme. “Quite often when I see problems in a company that can somewhat be related to training, it is also related to inadequate supervision. There might not be enough supervisors or they might not be supervising as they should be, or there are not enough people there to perform their functions, and therefore they are making more mistakes because they are trying to rush and do more work than they can actually do.” TYPES OF HUMAN ERRORS At the March University of Georgia conference, FDA National Drug Expert Investigator Rebeca Rodriguez, pointed out that the effectiveness of training as a preventive or corrective action will depend on the type of human error that it is intended to prevent or correct. She commented on five different types of human error that are uncovered during inspections. • Organizational/systemic: For example, when the work culture priority in the company is efficiency and productivity. Of course, efficiency and productivity are important, but so is quality. So there has to be a balance. Some companies put quite too much emphasis on productivity. And the managers lead by example and people are just cutting corners the same as the managers, and they are therefore taking product and regulatory risks to reduce cost and increase profits. And some companies have gone so far as to say that they would take the risk of doing this or that, because they don’t expect FDA to catch them doing it. • Procedural (SOPs): Sometimes SOPS are not clear, or the instructions are contradictory. I saw a company during an inspection that was having pretty serious problems with their cleaning procedures. They were having a lot of cleaning verification or evaluation sample failures. And sure enough when I went to the SOPs, they were not clear. When I interviewed the operators, they were doing different things. But it was not the operator’s fault, it was the company’s fault,, because the SOPs were not clear in the first place. How do you train someone in SOPs that are not clear? • Careless work: That is another type of human error, where people are forgetful. They are not paying attention to what they are doing, or they are careless. Sometimes people have serious personal problems, they have a lot of stuff in their minds. This happens. But also the work environment may have an influence on these types of errors. For example if you have an operation where you have to rely on the person’s memory to execute some steps correctly, you [may be] setting that person up for failure. • Voluntary/intentional: The SOP is inadequate and the employees know the SOP is wrong and they just don’t follow it. Many times we see that employees do backdating, sometimes following instructions from managers. • Involuntary: Errors due to human variability. We know there are going to be errors. We are just human. We are all human. But what can we do to minimize them? It depends on the type of error, as I said. ww w.ipqpubs.com 18 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality In commenting on training issues at the URI conference, MHRA’s Hopkins made a relevant comment that senior managers also need training, and that investigators often find this missing, especially in the U.K. effectiveness,” Hopkins explained. For example, “for more complex changes in procedures we might expect some sort of formal assessment – going through with the training and making sure they understood what they just read.” He cited a recent visit to a site that “had new senior managers, a new QA manager. She had never been trained in the recall procedure or the deviation procedure for a QA manager. And I asked them why not. ‘Well she has worked in industry. She knows how deviation systems work. She knows how recall systems work.’ Yes, but she doesn’t know the number she is supposed to ring for a recall. She doesn’t know which bit she is responsible for. For the deviations, she didn’t know that she was supposed to close her initial report within three days. Therefore every single report I looked at was over two weeks old.” Rodriquez pointed out that, while the Q7A guidance on training generally lines up with the U.S. GMPs, one area where Q7A gives more detail is training records. “Senior managers need training as well,” Hopkins stressed. “They don’t just know by osmosis everything that is right about your procedures.” In general, MHRA investigators will expect firms to show that the appropriate training has occurred and that it has been effective. “We are quite happy to see different levels of The ICH guideline specifies that records of training should be maintained, including the content of the training. In the past, FDA investigators have found companies were not always able to explain the training content. However, Rodriquez “has seen a great improvement in this area.” Noting the flexibility in the GMPs regarding training frequency, she explained that the Q9 risk management principles can be used “to determine the adequacy of training and the frequency.” She stressed that FDA’s quality systems guideline emphasizes personnel development, not just training. It highlights the role of management in supporting a problem-solving ERROR PRECURSOR LIST The following is a listing of potential causes of mistakes related to: • task demands • work environment • individual capabilities, and • human nature. The list, included in a study of laboratory errors prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy, was presented by FDA National Drug Expert Investigator Rebeca Rodriguez in discussing pharmaceutical training issues at the March UGA conference. Task Demands • Time pressure (in a hurry) • High workload (memory requirements) • Simultaneous, multiple tasks • Repetitive actions, monotonous • Irrecoverable acts • Interpretation requirements • Unclear goals, roles & responsibilities • Lack of or unclear standards Individual Capabilities • Unfamiliarity with task/First time • Lack of knowledge (mental model) • New technique not used before • Imprecise communication habits • Lack of proficiency/Inexperience • Indistinct problem-solving skills • “Hazardous” attitude for critical task • Illness/Fatigue Work Environment • Distractions/Interruptions • Changes/Departures from routine • Continuing displays or controls • Workarounds/OOS instruments • Hidden system response • Unexpected equipment conditions • Lack of alternative indication • Personality conflicts Human Nature • Stress (limits attention) • Habit patterns • Assumptions (inaccurate mental picture) • Complacency/Overconfidence • Mindset (“tuned to see”) • Inaccurate risk perception (Pollyanna) • Mental shortcuts (biases) • Limited short-term memory Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 19 International Pharmaceutical Quality and communicative organizational structure and advises that training needs to have the necessary depth and breadth to encompass the operational activities, quality system and work culture. Training also must be supported by and synergistic with other elements of a quality system, such as: product development and knowledge transfer; trending of data; CAPA; audits; and succession planning. In turn, the effectiveness of training, Rodriquez stressed, “will ultimately be determined by the robustness of the quality system.” Noting the different types of human errors that may be involved (see box on previous page), the FDA investigator pointed to two basic types of approaches in the literature to preventing them: the “person” approach and the “system” approach. The person approach includes coaching. The problem with coaching is that it may result in the employee being afraid to report problems and covering them up instead. Revising procedures, retraining and disciplinary measures also fall into this category. Rodriquez commented that “unfortunately” she sees a lot of retraining by itself, which makes her “real uncomfortable.” The systems approach, on the other hand, “takes into consideration that humans are fallible and that errors are to be expected. And because you know that, you develop CAPAs to change the conditions under which employees work, and you develop systems with barriers, safeguards and redundant operations to help prevent those errors.” Vaccine Manufacturing Draws Attention The challenges of vaccine manufacturing are getting increased regulatory inspection attention as this product segment expands. “There are some challenges with vaccine manufacturing that the traditional biotech people have already worked through,” industry consultant Rebecca Devine noted in introducing the discussions at a PDA vaccines interest group session at the association’s annual meeting in Las Vegas in April. Devine was formerly involved in developing manufacturing-related policy for the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). For monoclonal antibodies, she pointed out, the platforms “are pretty straightforward,” generally using CHO cells. Not so for the more novel vaccine cell types “where there are a lot more quality and manufacturing issues – for example, with adventitious agents, testing, sourcing of the materials.” In addition, bulk manufacturing may require aseptic processing, for example for live vaccines. At a URI conference on vaccines in March, CBER Office of Vaccines Research and Review Director Norman Baylor stressed the regulatory challenges presented by these manufacturing complexities. Technological advances have resulted in vaccine development being one of the fastest growing segments in the biomedical industry, Baylor said, noting that vaccine manufacturing is evolving in both the production systems used and the types of vaccines developed. He explained that vaccines in general require more stringent regulatory oversight because of the complexities of the manufacturing process. They are difficult to analyze for product consistency, and the high demand for safety heightens the importance of a well-characterized manufacturing process. Particularly challenging for the new technologies is reproducing the manufacturing from the research through scaleup where millions of doses may be involved. The limitations of traditional vaccines have led to the emergence of new vaccine strategies and routes of administration, the CBER official commented. Regulatory issues involving cell substrates and improving the sensitivity and reliability of test methods extend across vaccine product classes. But there are also product specific issues; for example, regarding potency and efficacy assays. The variety of expression systems being explored for the production of viral like particles for vaccines against viruses raise special concerns. The big challenge for FDA, Baylor concluded, is to be in a position to develop new scientific and regulatory requirements to evaluate new vaccines that are relevant to the technologies used to produce them. Novel vaccine approaches, such as vectored vaccines and novel delivery systems, “require complex testing for product characterization and assay validation” and improved assays for evaluating them. Vaccine manufacturers are regulated by CBER and fall under the inspection purview of the agency’s “Team Biologics.” The team has responsibility for conducting post-marketing inspections of licensed biologic drugs and devices. Established in 1997, it represents a partnership between the field’s Office of Regulatory Affairs and CBER. The “Core Team” includes about 10 specially trained field ww w.ipqpubs.com 20 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality investigators located nationwide. Team Bio also encompasses CBER product specialists, ORA and CBER compliance officers and respective management, any of which may participate in the inspection and/or the assessment of the results. The post-market inspections may be conducted jointly. CBER takes the lead on preapproval inspections. In accord with the shift in product review responsibilities, in October 2007 the inspection oversight of CDER-regulated therapeutic products was transferred from Team Biologics to the district offices. With the exception of those for IVDs, Team Biologics inspections follow the model for drug GMP inspections in taking a systems-based approach, as outlined in the Compliance Program Guidance Manual, “Inspection of Biologic Drug Products” (CPG 7345.848). The CPG identifies the six key systems to be covered – quality, production, facilities/equipment, materials, packaging/labeling and laboratory control – and the three “critical elements” within each of them: • standard operating procedures (SOPs) • training, and • records. Basically the guide calls for investigators to assure that for each of the six systems: there are detailed written approved procedures and that these are followed; personnel are trained for their specific job function and in current GMPs for each manufacturing operation or QC function; and records are maintained concurrently with the operation being performed and accurate and detailed enough to provide a complete history of the work. FDA concern with vaccine production was reflected in two major vaccine manufacturers, Merck and Novartis, drawing FDA warning letters during 2008. The two warning letters are as much indicative of the complexity of the operations involved as their level of GMP noncompliance. The letters shed light on where FDA’s GMP concerns lie in the vaccine manufacturing arena. In line with the recent warning letter cohort as a whole, both the Merck and Novartis letters had as a central focus the investigation of OOS results. The Novartis letter was issued in January 2008 based on an inspection of the firm’s vaccines and diagnostics facility in Marburg, Germany in September 2007. The inspection dealt with the manufacture of rabies vaccine (RabAvert) and unpreserved diphtheria/tentanus toxoids concentrate. INVENTORY OF FIRMS COVERED BY TEAM BIOLOGICS (domestic and foreign sites as of May 2009) • 28 vaccines and related products • 42 plasma-derived products and their recombinant analogues • 15 allergenic extracts • 26 in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) • 1 cell therapy hydromorphone or oxycodone For the rabies vaccine, the inspection centered on how the firm responded to the finding of Candida guilliermondii contamination in lots of RabAvert. The contamination was found in a lot in October 2006 and again in June 2007 as part of an investigation into inactivation failures. The second lot was retested for safety and sterility and found non-sterile. The root cause for the sterility failures was determined to be low levels of contamination of individual bottles of a lot of media with Candida during aseptic filling of the media lot. However, FDA noted in the letter that another 15 lots that came into contact with the media lot “did not undergo a second sterility test as was performed during the investigation of previously manufactured lots” and were submitted to the agency for release. The warning letter notes that 12 of 96 bottles from the suspect media lot remained after the sterility failure finding in October 2006. All of the 12 were discarded from production “without subjecting the media to sterility testing to determine the extent of the contamination.” The warning letter also pointed to the incomplete investigation of three rabies vaccine batches which failed viable rabies virus testing after the virus inactivation process. The RabAvert batches were rejected and Novartis suspended production of the rabies vaccine in February 2007. The investigations were found incomplete “in that they did not identify a root cause for the virus inactivation failures, and did not include an evaluation of the cleaning processes and procedures for product contacting equipment to determine if equipment cleaning is effective in preventing cross contamination of the inactivated batches.” FDA did its own investigation and alleged that changes in the firm’s cleaning procedures were not appropriately validated. The agency further found fault with Novartis’ stability evaluation in not using containers and closure systems for stability sample storage representative of the final container, and Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 21 International Pharmaceutical Quality for an inadequate validation study on the use of connectors for the media formulation area in that the final report did not address the reason for or the potential effects on the study of deviations in sample hold times and media leakage. Also of concern was a variation noted from the firm’s procedures on viral inactivation time on the rabies virus suspension. The letter noted that Merck had received numerous customer complaints citing over-pressurization of vials. Again the concern was that the follow-up investigations did not address the possibility of ingress as the reason for the problem, and “did not consider the possibility that the packing method might not be functioning as validated.” FDA said the findings were “indicative” of the QC unit not fulfilling its responsibility to assure the quality of components and in-process materials. The CBER warning letter asks for detail on how the Novartis facility would attain GMP compliance with regard to bulk lot production and process controls and investigations. The description should include how the firm would “use all of the relevant information to conduct thorough investigations to ensure that adequate steps are taken to evaluate whether deviations impact product, and to implement effective corrective and preventive actions.” Other examples of investigation shortcomings involved reviewing other lots that may have been affected when fibers were observed during filling, and lack of investigation when vaccine lots had failed visual inspection. The letter further commented that Novartis appeared to have addressed the individual FDA 483 items from the inspection, but the firm’s response “addresses these issues individually and not as part of a comprehensive corrective action plan.” Merck received the warning letter in April 2008 addressing an inspection ending the previous January of the firm’s West Point, Pennsylvania facility. The plant manufactures several licensed vaccine products and their bulk substances and components. Focusing first on the product side, the letter begins with the finding that the firm had not “thoroughly investigated any unexplained discrepancy of a batch or any of its components to meet any of its specifications, whether or not the batch has already been distributed, and to extend the investigation to other batches of the same drug product and other drug products that may have been associated with the specific failure or discrepancy.” Giving examples, the letter notes that Merck had submitted a Biological Product Deviation Report (BPDR) to FDA in October 2006 due to an OOS finding at the two-month stability time point for Varivax III. The product had been shipped abroad and then returned to the U.S. before being placed on stability, and was not licensed in the U.S. at the time of the deviation. Merck’s investigation concluded that the failure was due to ingress into the vial headspace during shipment. However, FDA noted, the investigation did not include testing of other potentially affected products such as ProQuad “to determine if there were any detrimental effects on these products.” FDA further asserted that Merck’s SOPs for handling complaints were not adequate – for example, in only directing that a lot history be performed for a particular final finish or packaging/labeling lot number. “Complaints such as leaking vials/syringes and various container/closure defects would be associated with a fill lot number, and a fill lot number may be associated with several final finish lot numbers,” the agency stressed. Discussing vaccine inspection findings at a dinner meeting of PDA’s New Jersey chapter in May, New Jersey District investigator Ann Marie Montemurro cited the finding at Merck as an example of investigator concern with complaint handling and investigation at vaccine and other biological facilities. Montemurro is Team Leader for the Team Biologics “Core Team” and participated on the Merck inspection. Without naming Merck as the recipient of the observation under discussion, Montemurro explained that “the firm” was getting “a lot of complaints on vials and syringes,” and would do trace backs looking at the packaging lot number. “However, they could have six or seven packaging lots made from one fill lot. They never took it back to the fill lot. So that was something we saw as a deviation.” When the investigation team actually went back and looked at the other lots potentially affected, she said, there was a larger trend than their data had indicated. Failure investigations were also addressed in the warning letter section on Merck’s handling of bulk drug substances and drug components. FDA maintained that the firm had not quarantined “numerous process intermediates” associated with the use of filter membranes that were identified to cause foaming during filtration. The foaming was found to be associated with leaching of an unwanted substance into process intermediates that were used to further manufacture product lots of different vaccines. ww w.ipqpubs.com 22 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality The agency also cited the firm’s investigation into leaks discovered during recharge of a lot that concluded there was no impact. The investigation report had an unsigned and undated chronology of events based on a notebook maintained by the production manager whose relevant pages were found to be missing. A third example involved a sterility failure of a Pedvax bulk lot. The investigation, the letter maintains, failed to assess a recent change in the steam-in-place (SIP) cycle for a tank involved in the process. The validation of this SIP change was subsequently implicated during investigation of the failure of a media challenge, which led to the recall of several PedVaxHIB and COMVAX lots, the letter notes. Merck recalled ten lots of its haemophilus b (meningococcal protein) conjugate vaccine PedvaxHIB and two lots of COMVAX, which combines the haemophilus b conjugate with hepatitis B recombinant vaccine, in December 2007 while the FDA inspection was in process. About 1 million doses were involved. In a release, Merck said that the recall was a “precautionary measure” being taken because the company could not “assure sterility for these specific vaccine lots.” The firm explained that it had identified the presence of Bacillus cereus during routine testing of the manufacturing equipment used to produce the implicated products, although sterility tests of the vaccine lots themselves prior to their release had not found any contamination. Merck advised that the potential for contamination of any individual vaccine was low, and, if present, the level of contamination would be low. Also, there were no concerns about the efficacy of the vaccine lots, and Merck had not received any reports involving B. cereus-related infection in children who had received vaccine from the lots. The company said that it was suspending production of the Hib conjugate vaccines and did not expect to resume distribution until the fourth quarter of 2008. The other manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur, likely would not be able to immediately make up the difference for enough product to vaccinate fully all children for whom the vaccine is recommended, Merck added, noting that CDC was recommending that health providers temporarily defer administering the routine Hib vaccine booster dose except in high-risk children. The warning letter to Merck also addressed bulk container closure systems, including those used for Pedvax and RECOMBIVAX . FDA maintained that the firm had failed to assure that these systems provided “adequate protection against foreseeable external factors in storage and use that can cause deterioration or contamination of bulk drug substances and sterile solutions used in production.” During her presentation at the May PDA meeting, investigator Montemurro discussed this observation (again without attribution) as an example of recent Team Bio findings involving the material system. The first example cited in the warning letter was that the container closure study did not include assessment of the affect of the storage conditions. Montemurro explained that the bulk products were stored frozen in a plastic carboy with a screw top, which had a specific torque applied to it. Merck had done the container closure studies applying the torque, but did not measure the effect of the freezing and the long term storage on that torque rate. The question remained, she said, if the applied torque “was enough to account for the backoff torque that you are going to see when you store something frozen for that long.” The second example included in the letter involved inadequate validation study of the storage of sterile filtered solutions. Montemurro explained that FDA looked at the issue due to the sterility failure in the Pedvax. To the FDA questioning, Merck responded that it had validated the container closure system, prompting further investigator inquiry. The Team Bio inspector made a larger point that firms should not use validation status as a rationale for not pursuing an investigation into “validated” areas when problems occur. This was a “recurring theme” during the Merck inspection, Montemurro said. In this case, the cause of the sterility problem was not found to be the container closure, but something else that the firm’s original investigation had eliminated as a validated area. In the warning letter, CBER requested a meeting with Merck senior management to “further discuss the issues cited in this letter and your proposed responses to address them” in the effort to facilitate the remediation efforts. “Given the potential contributions of safe, pure and potent vaccines to the public health,” FDA said, “we encourage frequent interactions between your technical staff and FDA in an effort to help Merck move forward with corrective actions as rapidly as possible.” Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 23 International Pharmaceutical Quality Also receiving a biologic product-related warning letter during the 2008-2009 timeframe was Genzyme. A letter was issued in late February 2009 addressing inspection findings in the fall of 2008 at the firm’s Allston, MA plant. As in the Merck case, the letter delineated issues involving both drug products (Fabrazyme, Cerezyme and Myozyme) and bulk substances and components. The drug product discussion focused on the firm’s microbiological contamination control procedures – in particular its air flow studies. At issue in the bulk substance area was bioburden monitoring after hold times of intermediates or pooled buffers during purification of Fabrazyme, Myozyme and Cerezyme. The letter also maintains that Genzyme’s current procedural and automated in-process controls for formulating pooled buffers did not assure that the pooled buffers would meet their specifications. FDA asserted that the firm’s follow up to these “documented deviations did not include training of operators or those supervising formulation operations.” Genzyme’s maintenance of certain bulk process equipment and computer systems in a validated state was also cited. Vaccine Deviation Reports Often Late Biological product deviation reporting is an issue that is not infrequently raised on biologic inspections. In a presentation at the URI vaccines conference in March, CBER Office of Compliance and Biologics Quality Director Mary Malarkey stressed that firms are not always submitting the reports on time, particularly in the vaccines area. Where 96% of the 169 BPDRs submitted in FY 2008 for allergenic products were within the requested 45 day reporting time, only 60% of the 97 vaccine reports made that deadline. In vitro diagnostics were in the middle range with 77% of 78 IVD reports made within 45 days. Noting the problem of late reports, Malarkey advised firms not to do a complete investigation before submitting the report, but to file the report ASAP with the knowledge available and complete the investigation in as timely a fashion as possible. compared to 100% of those filed by allergenic manufacturers and about 80% by IVD firms. Malarkey stressed that reporting electronically provides for more effective and efficient processing and use of the information provided. She stressed that CBER wants to help facilitate electronic reporting by the vaccine industry in particular. Overall, BPDRs increased 8% in FY ’08 compared to the previous year. The increase largely reflected a spike in vaccine reports, which increased by 37 or more than a third. Product specification issues were the primary cause of the reports, accounting for 65% for all product types. Quality control and distribution problems accounted for 10% of the filings, followed by labeling deviations and process controls at around 8%, testing deviations at 6%, and incoming material issues at 2%. Among vaccines, 50 of the 97 reports involved product specification deviations. Leading causes were the spec not being met or foreign material in the product. Other problems noted in the filings were components not meeting specifications, missing stoppers or crimps, and stability failures for potency, purity, moisture, pH and preservatives. QC/distribution problems accounted for 20 vaccine reports. These included reports on product shipped or stored at incorrect temperatures, inadequate seals, and broken/cracked vials. Process controls generated nine vaccine reports during the year. Use of an unapproved filter, media fill problems, equipment not performing properly and sanitization not being performed correctly were among the causes. Testing problems generated seven vaccine reports, including safety, sterility, identity and stability testing not being performed or documented or performed correctly. Labeling, including multiple labels, product or carton label missing, or lot number missing, resulted also in seven vaccine BPDRs. Another issue for vaccine manufacturers is their slow conversion to electronic filing (eBPD). Only 11 of the 97 reports submitted by vaccine firms in FY ’08 were done electronically, ww w.ipqpubs.com 24 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality APPENDIX I FDA DRUG GMP WARNING LETTERS ISSUED IN 2008/2009 The following is a list of the 43 drug, therapeutic biologic and vaccine warning letters issued by FDA during 2008 and 2009 (through May) that address GMP concerns. The company receiving the warning letter, the location, the letter date, the date of the inspection generating the letter, and any associated recalls are included in the listing, along with a brief description of the main areas of concern cited. The warning letters are categorized by the types of products covered during the relevant inspection: • injectable (10) • miscellaneous (10) • topical (6) • API (6) • oral solids/liquid (5) • transdermal (2) • veterinary (2) • inhalation (1) • repacker (1). INJECTABLE Catalent Pharma Solutions Location: Raleigh, North Carolina Letter date: March 2008 Inspection date: November 2007 • Deviation investigations in water and air sampling • cleaning/disinfection of aseptic processing rooms/equipment • microbial contamination prevention procedures: (environmental monitoring result review) • analytical methods validation (sterility, bioburden) • sampling, growth promotion testing Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center Location: New York, New York Letter date: December 2008 Inspection date: June 2008 Products: PET • discrepancy investigations • establishing and following QC test procedures • medial fill growth promotion • analytical equipment maintenance Cyclotron Center of NE Florida Location: Orange Park, Florida Letter date: January 2009 Inspection date: August 2008 Products: PET • sterilization activities and testing • endotoxin testing procedures • incoming material evaluation • discrepancy investigations • production quality oversight • equipment maintenance Dabur Oncology Location: Bordon, United Kingdom Letter date: April 2009 Inspection date: August 2008 • environmental monitoring in isolators • equipment maintenance • visual inspection procedures • isolator and lab equipment qualification • discrepancy investigations • lab record signoff • QC unit record review Genzyme Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts Letter date: February 2009 Inspection date: September/October 2008 Products: therapeutic biologics – dosage, bulk and components Finished product: • microbial prevention procedures (air flow and line speed validation) Bulk and component: • production/process controls (bioburden monitoring, buffer control and training followup) • equipment maintenance (interior of columns, cryoshippers) • computer system maintenance IBA Molecular Location: Sterling, Virginia Letter date: October 2008 Inspection date: May 2008 Products: PET drugs • Analytical test procedures: (endotoxin and sterility retesting) • media fill sterilization testing • discrepancy investigations and corrective action • aseptic technique • equipment inspection Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 25 International Pharmaceutical Quality Merck Location: West Point, Pennsylvania Letter date: April 2008 Inspection date: November 2007, January 2008 Products: vaccines – dosage, bulk and components Recalls: Haemophilus b conjugate vaccine; haemophilus b conjugate/hepatitis B vaccine (sterility assurance) Finished product: • batch deviation investigations • complaint handling procedures • production/process controls: (inspection equipment validation and inspection, process control limit review) • computer validation • lab control deviation handling Bulk and components: • production/process controls: bulk holding times • discrepancy investigations • component stability • cleaning procedures • equipment maintenance • container/closure storage assessment Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Location: Marburg, Germany Letter date: January 2008 Inspection date: September 2007 Products: vaccines • Production/process controls: (media sterility assurance and storage, stability study on vaccine concentrate, validation study deviation follow up, viral inactivation procedure) • Discrepancy investigations (sterility and viral inactivation) • Equipment cleaning/maintenance (validation studies). Pharmalucence Location: Bedford, MA Letter date: September 2008 Inspection date: April 2008 • Microbiological contamination prevention (bacterial filtration retention validation, aseptic technique, steam sterilization validation, environmental monitoring, airflow and microbiological evaluation) • QC unit investigations • container depyrogenation • protective apparel • facility and equipment maintenance • microbiological testing (documentation, visual inspection) Primapharm Location: San Diego, California Letter date: October 2008 Inspection date: May 2008 • discrepancy investigations • microbiological contamination procedures (monitoring, personnel ingress, media fill SOP) • environmental monitoring system (surface sampling, sample timing, personnel alert/ action limits) • finished product inspection • cleaning system • equipment maintenance system • process validation • annual product review • drug approval/branding MISCELLANEOUS American Hormones Location: Wappingers Falls, New York Letter date: January 2008 Inspection date: December 2006 Products: Capsules, gels • Compounded drug approval/branding • stability testing • in-process testing • equipment cleaning procedures • batch testing • production procedures • component testing • complaint handling Concept Laboratories Location: Chicago, Illinois Letter date: August 2008 Letter date: December 2007/January 2008 Products: Orals, topicals • QC unit OOS investigations • process validation • process control procedure discrepancy justification • equipment cleaning validation • lab testing records • drug approval/branding Lupin Limited Location: Bhopal, India Letter date: May 2009 Inspection date: November 2008 Products: finished dose and sterile API • batch production record retention • personnel monitoring in aseptic area • smoke study performance • computer system review/performance • component reject labeling • media fill documentation • building maintenance • discrepancy investigations ww w.ipqpubs.com 26 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality Mallinckrodt (Covidien) Location: Maryland Heights, Missouri Letter date: August 2008 Inspection date: March 2008 Products: Radiopharmaceuticals – oral and injectable • Release limit • in-process control procedures • QC unit oversight of control procedures/specs/investigations Olay (Proctor and Gamble) Location: Cayey, Puerto Rico Letter date: April 2009 Inspection date: August/October 2008 Products: cleanser, nasal spray • discrepancy/complaint investigations • following cleaning SOPs • process change validation • complaint handling procedures • line sanitization practices Pharma Pac Location: De Kalb, Mississippi Letter date: April 2009 Inspection date: June/July 2008 Products: oral liquids, topicals • drug approval/branding • QC unit • production procedures • in-process and release testing procedures • stability data to support expiration dating • environmental controls • complaint handling procedures Ranbaxy Laboratories Location: Dewes. India Letter date: September 2008 Inspection: January/February 2008 Products: API and finished • beta-lactam containment control program • batch production and control records • discrepancy investigations • QC unit oversight • aseptic operations (sterile API) Ranbaxy Laboratories Location: Paonta Sahib, India Letter date: September 2008 Inspection date: March 2008 Products: finished • equipment cleaning record review/sign-off • batch record review/signoff • QC unit record review and discrepancy investigations Sage Products Location: Cary, Illinois Letter date: January 2009 Inspection date: June/July 2008 Products: Oral rinses, skin cloths Recalls: Chlorhedrine cloth (microbial contamination) • microbial limits specifications • environmental monitoring procedures • annual product reviews Vintage Pharmaceuticals • Microbial contamination prevention (establishing and following testLocation: Huntsville, AL ing procedures, discrepancy investigations, records maintenance, lot Letter date: February 2008 release) • drug approval/branding Inspection date: July, August 2007 Products: Oral liquids, topicals Recalls: primidone tabs (subpotent); perphenazine tabs (tablet separation); hydrocortisone otic sol. (impurity); bacitracin ointment and hemorrhoidal suppositories (microbial specs) Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 27 International Pharmaceutical Quality TOPICAL Cascadia Manufacturing Location: Bellevue, Washington Letter date: August 2008 Inspection date: February 2008 Products: mouth care patches • release testing and criteria (potency, microbial) • in-process testing procedures (mixing) • component testing (microbial, identity and after storage) • equipment cleaning (practices, procedures and records) • equipment/facility construction • batch production records • QC unit establishment • lab test methods • complaint handling procedures • discrepancy investigations • equipment maintenance procedures • stability prvogram • labeling/packaging material handling procedures • drug approval G&W Laboratories Location: South Plainfield, New Jersey Letter date: July 2008 Inspection date: December 2007 Products: Ointments, suppositories Recalls: hemorrhoidal ointment (potency/cGMP) • Product and in-process material release decision-making • process change during scale-up • equipment cleaning/maintenance • discrepancy investigations • in-process material testing • drug approval/ branding Omega Tech Labs Location: Boise, Idaho Letter date: October 2008 Inspection date: January, February 2008 • Drug approval/branding • batch testing • QC unit procedures • production procedures and control records • discrepancy investigations Prime Enterprises Location: Miami Lakes, Florida Letter date: January 2009 Inspection date: July 2008 • Drug approval/branding • deviation investigations and batch remixing • OOS batch release • stability testing • process validation • annual product review • master production records (mixing times) • yield determination Taro Pharmaceuticals Location: Brampton, Canada Letter date: February 2009 Inspection date: July 2008 • stability program • discrepancy investigations • QC unit batch review/ rejection Xttrium Laboratories Location: Chicago, Illinois Letter date: May 2009 Inspection date: July/December 2008 Products: skin cleansers, oral rinses • sanitary conditions • discrepancy investigations • microbial prevention procedures • annual product reviews • analytical procedures • complaint handling procedures ORAL SOLIDS/LIQUIDS Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories Location: Detroit, Michigan Letter date: October 2008 Inspection date: May/June 2008 Recalls: Metformin tabs (tablet weight variation) • QC unit (record review, discrepancy investigations, batch release, procedure/spec oversight, component recordkeeping, procedure change control) • in-process specification setting • equipment maintenance ww w.ipqpubs.com 28 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality Deltex Pharmaceuticals Location: Rosenberg, Texas Letter date: October 2008 Inspection date: June/July 2008 • QC unit procedures • lab controls (incoming API, tannate specification, microbial growth testing) • supplier analysis validation • discrepancy investigations • batch record notation • drug approval/branding Elge Location: Rosenberg, Texas Letter date: May 2008 Inspection date: January/February 2008 Recalls: Cough/cold susp. (subpotent) • lab controls (incoming API, tannate specification) • deviation investigations • supplier analysis validation • stability testing program • drug approval/branding Nostrum Pharmaceuticals Location: Kansas City, Missouri Letter date: April 2009 Inspection date: October/November 2008 • stability evaluation of new API supply • discrepancy investigation (stability data) • cleaning performance, verification and procedures • method verification (impurities) • supplier evaluation • computer validation Sandoz Location: Wilson, North Carolina Letter date: April 2008 Inspection date: March 2008 Recalls: alprazolam ER tabs, trifluoperazine tabs (dissolution); estradiol inj., succinylcholine (impurity); midodrine tabs (subpotent); lisinopril tabs (metal contamination); metoprolol ER tabs (cGMP) • process validation • discrepancy investigation completion • batch testing documentation • master record completeness • internal specification documentation/justification • computer system controls • following QC unit procedures API Changzhou SPL Location: Changzhou, China Letter date: April 2008 Inspection date: February 2008 Recalls: Heparin API (foreign substance) • impurity removal evaluation • crude material supplier evaluation • test method verification • equipment suitability Pucheng Chia Tai Biochemistry Location: Pucheng, China Letter date: February 2008 Inspection date: September 2007 • Batch production test records • QC unit: structure, procedures, and activities Qingdao Jiulong Biopharmaceuticals Location: Jiaoshou City, China Letter date: April 2009 Inspection date: July/August 2008 Recalls: heparin sodium (contamination) • system for supplier control and contamination prevention • deviation and complaint investigation into over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate contamination • technology transfer review • product quality review Shanghai No. 1 Biochemical & Pharmaceutical Location: Shanghai, China Letter date: April 2009 Inspection date: August 2008 Recalls: heparin sodium (contamination) • veracity of declared manufacturing location and labeling • batch testing as per DMF and COAs • discrepancy investigations into over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 29 International Pharmaceutical Quality Synkem SAS Location: Chenove Cedex, France Letter date: May 2009 Inspection date: September 2008 • discrepancy investigations • QC unit document review/approval • discrepancy investigations • raw material supplier qualification • product quality reviews Tomita Pharmaceutical Company Location: Tokushima, Japan Letter date: January 2008 Inspection date: July, August 2007 • Laboratory system: (analyst worksheets, deviation investigations, computer system validation and security) TRANSDERMAL Newman (Medi-Stat) Location: Mobile, Alabama Letter date: June 2008 Inspection date: December 2007 • Compounded drug approval/branding • component testing • batch testing • equipment qualification • stability testing • QC unit oversight • production and control records • lot numbering • batch production and control procedures and records Noven Pharmaceuticals Location: Miami, Florida Letter date: January 2008 Inspection date: June, July 2007 Recalls: Methylphenidate patch (peel force spec) • Liner release (specification and stability) VETERINARY Jer-Vic (Foy’s Pigeon Supplies) Location: Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania Letter date: May 2008 Inspection date: January 2008 • Repackaged animal drug approval • component testing • dedicated areas for repackaging Virbac Location: Bridgeton, Missouri Letter date: December 2008 Inspection date: July 2008 • QC unit authority/investigations • following warehousing procedures • lab testing procedures • HPLC calibration • OOS stability investigations • labeling claim approval INHALATION Farmacia La Salud Location: Caguas, Puerto Rico Letter date: March 2008 Inspection date: May 2007 • Compounded drug approval/branding • microbiological contamination prevention procedures • sterility testing performance • batch release testing • equipment cleaning/maintenance procedures • component testing and release • batch recordkeeping • complaint handling • distribution tracking. REPACKER Whitney Labs Location: Ormond Beach, Florida Letter date: September 2008 Inspection date: March 2008 Products: solid/liquid orals Recalls: methadone oral sol. (mislabeling) • QC unit establishment • automated packaging line validation • procedure following/documentation • discrepancy/complaint handling and investigation • component/container evaluation • employee training • stability program and expiration dating • reserve sample retention • annual product review procedures ww w.ipqpubs.com 30 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality APPENDIX II MHRA GMP INSPECTOR ANDREW HOPKINS ON TOP MHRA INSPECTION FINDINGS At a University of Rhode Island-sponsored conference on inspections in late March, British Medicines Health Agency (MHRA) Senior GMP Inspector Andrew Hopkins discussed recent MHRA inspection findings within and outside the UK. Among the problem areas most commonly being cited are: • quality management systems • quality system documentation • design and maintenance of premises • supplier and raw material control • potential for microbial contamination, and • environmental monitoring. Hopkins discussed inspection deficiencies related to these areas and advised on MHRA GMP expectations. His comments in the first four areas are included below. A discussion by Hopkins of microbial contamination and environment monitoring concerns is included in Appendix 1 of the January/February 2009 issue of IPQ. Prior to joining the British agency in 2005, Hopkins worked for about two decades in the pharmaceutical industry in QC, QA and production. Quality Management Systems • Incomplete or tardy recording and investigation of complaints and incidents: That is really common, incredibly common. The first day of the inspection we will ask to see deviations lists and then we will start picking them out…. When we look at investigational systems, any non-conformance, we expect to see a robust investigation. We expect it to be done in a timely manner. So that means first of all you have a system where you do that critical assessment almost straight away. ‘I have got an incident. It has happened. How likely is it to affect product that we are continuing to make,… product that is out on the market.’ You can then do your triage, and say, ‘okay, it is quite a low level – we are going to take a couple of months to close that one out. It is high level – we need to do it in a couple of days.’ • No regular management review of quality indicators: We also expect you to have some sort of management review process. We expect you to be looking at your deviations. We expect you to have your deviations. We expect them to be in some sort of spread sheet or database, or even a manual system. But you need to have some system for saying, ‘this was raised on the 1st of January. Our expectation within the SOP is that it is closed within 31 days,’ or whatever [timeframe] you choose to set yourselves. It has been closed – fine. Or it hasn’t been closed, therefore it needs to be elevated to senior management. We expect you to trend those sorts of things. We expect you to trend the root cause and we expect you to trend overdues. So that when you find that it is the engineering department who never completes their investigations on time, you have some sort of senior management review that says, ‘okay, we have noticed you guys are always behind schedule. Why is that? Is it a prioritization issue? Is it a resource issue? Or do you just not care?’ Whichever the answer is, the senior management can then help support you by either giving people more time, more people, or helping them to care. • Lack of quality improvement/CAPA processes: What we mean by that is it is not just reacting to incidents that go wrong. It is actually proactively looking at things to say, ‘okay, where are we going now with this in the future? How are we going to improve before something goes wrong? So looking at web sites, looking at the EU GMPs, the FDA requirements – feeding into a system that says ‘did you know the requirements now are heading this way. Annex 1 has just changed and perhaps we need to make sure we are complying with Annex 1 – that sort of improvement process. What I should have talked about as well [regarding] investigations [is that] quite often we look at investigations and they are three liners where people haven’t really considered the full impact of what they are looking at. What was the root cause? What are they going to do about it? If you don’t assess the root cause, how can you possibly fix the problem? When I was in industry, we had a QA manager who, just before the FDA came to visit us, pulled out all of the deviations written on the site. As part of the training process, he sat down with all of the head managers of various production departments and quality assurance and QC, and, as an FDA investigator might, went through these deficiencies, these investigations, asking ‘what did you mean by that. What happened after that? And it is amazing what a good learning curve that is. Because once people have been through that pain, [that investigation sce- ww w.ipq pubs.com Dialogue™ Inside The G lobal Regulatory MAY/JUNE 2009 31 International Pharmaceutical Quality nario], it is a lot easier to understand what you actually need to get written down. The other thing about investigations is that it is a good idea to involve somebody independent from those investigations, so that they can sit down and ask all of the questions that I normally come in and ask: ‘You said you did that, but why did you do that? And why didn’t that matter? You had an autoclave failure, why are the other 16 batches okay?’ You need to ask those questions. Very often we will ask those questions and everybody will go, ‘oh, I know we had a meeting about that, and I spoke to him.’ But it is not written down anywhere. You need to write it down and get it clear so that if you happen to be the one who wins the lottery next week and disappear, everybody on site knows what is going on. • Insufficient change control: Start with the premise that any change needs formal control. Then if you need to void it afterward, fine. But always start with that scenario. And it is not just on changing the piece of equipment. It might be on changing the throughput of the site. That should be controlled by change control systems. I saw a site in the UK which makes vaccines. They had an issue whereby they increased their capacity by 20% from one season to the next. What they hadn’t realized is that their whole system was teetering on the edge of capability. When they increased by 20%, they had a complete fallover – something like 50% sterility failure. Funny enough they…tried to release the other 50%. You need to think about what is your capacity for the site? If I change it, what happens to it? How do I control that? Do I need more resource? If it is a sterile area, do I need to allow longer blow-downs? Do I need to change the cleaning [approach]? All sorts of things. Think outside the box when you are looking at change. It isn’t just specifically, ‘I am changing that valve and is it the same or not?’ Like-for-like changes are another particular favorite of mine. If you have an automated packaging line and you swap the camera for another camera, is that a like-for-like change? Possibly, possibly not, but you need to think about it. If you change a vacuum pump, is that a like-for-like change? No, definitely not. There are a number of sites where they have like-for-like change which will go to the criticality of equipment and allow it to be done with no formal control whatsoever. • Ineffective self-inspection systems: We will always look at your self-inspection system. Firstly, have you got one? Are you doing them in a timely manner? We are very aware that times are hard at the moment. One of the first things that goes when times get hard is training. The other thing that tends to happen is that the self-inspection procedure goes out the window. So you have this lovely schedule that says we are going to do this, this and this, and you don’t do any of it. So like your investigation system, you need to have some sort of escalation process that says: ‘This is the program we have agreed. We will allow a month either way, and if we don’t do it in that time, then we expect it to be escalated to senior management for them to review – why are we not complying with our procedures and what are we going to do about it? • Recall systems incomplete and untested: This is common in the U.S. You might have a requirement where you actually need to tell us about it and …what is going on. Another common one in the U.S. is that the EU GMPs require you periodically to retest your recall procedure. Not everybody has picked up on that. What we mean by that is to run a simulation. • Non-compliance with previous inspection commitments: That will get you straight into critical mode. Not necessarily will it stay there, but if we look at it and find several examples of where you haven’t done what you told us you were going to do, it may well go over to IAG [Inspection Action Group], which may take regulatory action against any licenses you are named on. So please talk to us on that one. Quality System Documentation • Lack of control of procedures and specifications: Frequently – possibly not so much in U.S., but it is still quite common – when we ask to see in a drawer, out comes the version of the document that is three versions old. So be aware of that and use it as part of the inspection readiness and audit as well. Don’t just look on the desk during your self-inspection program. Look in those hidden corners. Specifications are often out of date as well. Again make sure you have an up-to-date copy of the CTA [Clinical Trial Applications] or ww w.ipqpubs.com 32 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality the MA [Marketing Application]. If they have changed it, you need to know about it. So make sure that is written into your technical agreement. • SOPs lacking detail or missing certain activities: We quite often say, ‘okay Mr. Operator now running the packing line, how are you doing what you are doing and what are you doing?’ And they will talk us through it, and he will know exactly what he is doing. And then we will ask to look at the procedure, and it won’t bear any relevance at all to what is written in the procedure. The chances are your operator is actually doing what is the right thing. You have written your procedure wrong. So when you write your procedures, get your operators involved. They know what is going on. I love the process flows. Get your operators involved in process flows. Because quite often what happens is that you will go through procedures that say we do this, that or the other, and the operator will say, ‘oh yea, do you know we have never done it that way, because we can’t actually do that, and what we do is this.’ So talk to your operators and update the procedures and make sure they are right. Quite often we still find unofficial aide memoires or procedures scattered around labs and areas. If when you do your self-inspection you find lots of unofficial documents, that is a really good indicator that your procedures are not up to scratch. • Inadequate recording of training and effectiveness: We expect you to show that you have trained somebody. And we expect you to show that that training has been effective. And we are quite happy to see different levels of effectiveness…. For more complex changes [in procedures] we might expect some sort of formal assessment – going through with the training and making sure they understood what they just read. A really common one, especially in the UK funny enough, is that senior managers don’t appear to ever need training. I don’t know why. I have been to a site a while ago and they had new senior managers, a new QA manager. She had never been trained in the recall procedure or the deviation procedure for a QA manager. And I asked them why not. ‘Well she has worked in industry. She knows how deviation systems work. She knows how recall systems work.’ Yes, but she doesn’t know the number she is supposed to ring for a recall. She doesn’t know which bit she is responsible for. For the deviations, she didn’t know that she was supposed to close her initial report within three days. Therefore every single report I looked at was over two weeks old. Senior managers need training as well. They don’t just know by osmosis everything that is right about your procedures. • Technical agreements missing or incomplete: You need to have technical agreements in place. You need to have them with labs. You need to have them with suppliers. You need to have them with the QPs as well. If your QP is not actually working for your company, there needs to be an agreement between you saying who is responsible for what, how the information gets passed. If people have technical agreements, quite often they don’t have sufficient detail of who is responsible for what. And if they do have sufficient detail, they then don’t have a system for reviewing. In the U.S. you have had annual product reviews for a number of years, so a lot of people will say, ‘yeah, the EU has introduced PPQRs (Periodic Product Quality Reviews) a couple of years ago, but we have been doing APRs for ages, so we don’t need to worry about that.’ There are a few differences in the PPQRs – one of which is that you need to review your technical agreements every year. It doesn’t mean that you revise them, but you do need to review them every year and make sure they are appropriate and make sure they are there. • Documentation of maintenance and calibration activities: I love engineering departments. They keep me busy. Frequently we will go and look at maintenance and there won’t be a specification for what people are doing. There will just be a simple note saying, ‘yup, we came and did the monthly maintenance.’ You need to have something saying what you are going to do, when you are going to do it. Again, like your self-inspection and your deviations, what leeway you are allowed. So if my maintenance says I am going to do planned preventive maintenance on it every six months, am I allowed a month here or there? Define that. What isn’t acceptable is for me to turn up on site and say, ‘okay, let’s look at your planned preventive maintenance schedule,’ and find that the entire sterile area is three or four months behind schedule, and the answer I then get is ‘yea, but we have some big orders in so we kept it going and delayed the planned preventive maintenance.’ You can’t just do that. If you really want to do that, then get QA buy in, do a risk assessment, do a deviation to support it. I personally wouldn’t do it. But if you really want to do it, make sure you do it Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 33 International Pharmaceutical Quality formally – risk-assess it. We are big into risk assessments these days. Calibration activities: Make sure you get ‘as found’ as well as adjusted results. If you don’t get ‘as found,’ how do you know what has been going on for the last three, six months, and that everything you have made is still okay? Design And Maintenance Of Premises • Use of low quality building fabrics leading to easily damaged walls and doors which become difficult to clean: This one was quite high on the U.S. list last year especially around aseptic areas. Annex 1 talks about easily cleanable areas. And when we go and look at an area and it has got holes in the wall or plaster or ledges, or even in one instance wooden bits in there, you get quite concerned by that. But it is true of all clean areas – you need to make sure that what it is built from is appropriate. If you find in your self-assessment process it isn’t appropriate, then build a deviation, build an action plan. If it is a reasonable action plan, you probably won’t get a deficiency. If it is a hole in the wall with dust coming out, then you probably will get a deficiency. But if it is a reasonable assessment and documented, there is a good chance you are already moving away from a deficiency. If the risk assessment is written the week before I turn up, then you might still get a deficiency. • Incorrect airflows and pressure differentials to prevent cross contamination: I have been to several cytotoxic/non-cytotoxic sites last year. On one site in the U.S., we started in the non-cytotoxic area, and we went to the packing line and there were various issues there, but I won’t go through that. We went to the vial sterilization area and came out, looked through the aseptic window for non-cytotoxics, walked to the warehouse where people were coming in an out of the outside doors with the same clothes as they were wearing everywhere else, carried on wandering through the process. Eventually our tour guide said, ‘and this is the cytotoxic washer.’ How have I gotten from the cytotoxic area all the way down to the non-cytotoxics without once changing? They just hadn’t thought about it. Pressure differentials weren’t in place, so they weren’t containing materials. That one went to IAG. I saw another site where they had pressure differentials maintained to support their cytotoxic processing. It was explained to me, ‘this is how we do it. We have individual booths for each area where there is cytotoxic processing.’ They all have negative [pressure]. It is all single pass through air, so it is all being dumped onto the neighbors. As I stood and watched the process, three operators stood and had a conversation in the door with the door open for about five or ten minutes – no pressure differential whatsoever. • Sterile area changing rooms: They need to make the grade that you are going into at rest. Please be aware of that. They need to be designed properly. If you have a sterile area changing room, which is a nice long changing room like they quite often are, make sure the air flow is from the clean end to the dirty end, not vice-versa. It is amazing, that sounds quite obvious. But frequently we don’t see that. Make sure it is big enough, so that if there is somebody my size or bigger hopping around on one foot trying to put on a sterile suit, they are not crashing into the wall or other operators. Make sure it is big enough for what you are doing. Be aware that Annex 1 actually talks about having a separate changing room for coming out as well. That is quite nice to have. It is not a must have, but it is a good idea to have thought about it. I think what happens with sterile changing rooms is everyone designs the sterile area and they can fit all of their equipment in. Just about, but it is not quite big enough so they push the wall a little bit further, and you end up with a changing room that is just not big enough. So think about that. • Goods receipt areas of insufficient size: Probably a similar [issue] for goods receipt areas. Frequently we go to a goods receipt area and it is piled high because unusually for the day of the inspection they have had more deliveries then they would normally have any other time of year. And it is piled high with stuff, and then you find the quarantined stuff is actually in the non-quarantine rack. Supplier And Raw Material Control • Insufficient assurance of supplier adequacy: A hot topic at the moment. Obviously we have seen some real issues coming out of China. You need to make sure that your raw materials are of appropriate quality. • No evidence that APIs have been manufactured to GMP: Your poor old QP who is legally responsible for all of this makes a decla- ww w.ipqpubs.com 34 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality ration that you are in compliance with GMP, and that the API used is in compliance with GMP. So make sure that he or she actually has the evidence to make that statement. • TSE risks inadequately controlled: That again is quite common for us over here. You need to understand that in the UK specifically, TSE is a really highly perceived, politicized risk – way beyond any scientific support. You need to be aware of that. So you need to have a policy that says how you deal with TSE risks certainly if you are dealing with the UK and with the EU as well. There is a guidance now that you need to follow [SI 2003/1680; CPMP NFG 410 rev2]. Anything from cows – make sure you have a TSE statement for; if your tallow in your punch room is not TSE certified, that you know whatever it has come from. • No vendor recertification or secondary/backup to suppliers: So that is quite common as well. You go through your approval process, you approve your supplier, and then you do nothing. You just leave him on your supplier list for the next 10 years without ever going back, without sending them a questionnaire, whatever. So you need to have a follow-up mechanism for making sure you revisit these people. • No system to address problems with suppliers, e.g. audit or increased testing: You have this system: The first three deliveries have to be fully tested, then you move on to the reduced testing regime. What happens if you have a problem? You need to have in that same procedure something that says ‘if we have a problem with the supplier, we are going to reevaluate the testing regimes’ – so how you deal with that. ‘We might even remove them from the listing.’ • Poor sampling facilities: A colleague of mine was in North America but not the U.S. and he saw a sampling facility for a sterile site. The sampling facility was literally just a room off a warehouse. There was no local extraction, there was not pressure differentials. They were sampling their vials in the warehouse – just opening up the trays and taking out a vial from the trays. You need to think about how you protect the products. Although you may not need to classify that area, you need to make a GMP cleaning area and then you may need to monitor that area. • Insufficient identification testing (Annex 8): Again, quite commonly in the U.S., everybody is using square root plus 1. We don’t accept square root plus 1. Annex 8 says that you must sample every container for identification purposes. That is the starting point. It does allow you the leeway for moving away from that if you have validated systems and audited suppliers, etc. But our benchmark starting point is that you have to sample every container for identification purposes. Potential For Microbial Contamination • Poor clean room and aseptic practices • Materials passed into sterile areas with insufficient sterility assurance • Inappropriate transfer of partially sealed vials to lyophiliser • Inappropriate handling of vials prior to oversealing • No program for routine drain sanitization Environmental Monitoring • Wash bays, cold stores and water systems not monitored microbiologically • No monitoring during or following building work • No viable monitoring close to point of fill for aseptic products • Poor handling and positioning of settle plates in critical zones • Poor or no continuous particle monitoring in critical zones • No assessment of recovery or growth promotion Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 35 International Pharmaceutical Quality APPENDIX III PAREXEL CONSULTANT DAVID CHESNEY ON FORCES IMPACTING FDA ENFORCEMENT At a conference on GMP inspections in late March sponsored by the University of Rhode Island, PAREXEL Consulting Strategic Compliance Services VP David Chesney discussed some of the factors that could influence inspection policies and GMP enforcement in the near term. Factors discussed include: • the new administration • key FDA positions being filled • foreign offices • investigator hirings • Q8-10 • criminal actions • Turbo EIR, and • new FDA guidances. Chesney’s presentation reflects the depth and breadth of his career in the FDA field force and afterwards consulting with industry management on compliance problems firms are facing. A New Administration: Change and Peanut Butter I was asked to talk about what there is in the crystal ball that we can look at that might be useful to understand or know about going forward in the near future related to inspections. We could talk about future casting of FDA trends probably all day here and come up with a panoply of different things involving the emergence of new technologies and where medicine is going and just a whole variety of things. But if you boil that down to what is really close, maybe appearing on the horizon now, and is specifically related to inspections, the world starts to shrink a little bit…. Two big factors: One that we have been hearing about through this long election year, and that is the general topic of change. That was the theme, if there was one, to this whole political process that we have just lived through. And the other one, believe it or not, is peanut butter. And I will say some more about that as we get into this. [FDA Minneapolis District Drug Expert Investigator Sharon Thoma] mentioned something about the continuing resolution and the FDA budget and where the resources are coming from. One of my favorite quotes when I was in the government and I didn’t have to worry about revenues so much as I do now is the line: ‘No one’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.’ That has been attributed to a lot of people [including] Benjamin Disraeli, the former Prime Minister of the U.K. Of course, it was rendered a little bit differently in the version attributed to him: ‘No man’s life, liberty or property is safe whilst the parliament is in session.’ That is kind of how you feel when you work for the government. You are just really not sure what Congress in its beneficence is going to do for your budget. A little bit different story in the private sector as we know. But when you are in the government, you have that hanging over your head all of the time. So now we have a new President… elected on a slate where he has promised a lot of change. He has two absolutely beautiful children that he has brought into the White House. And he wakes up and the young one is going off to school with her Hanna Montana lunch box with a peanut butter sandwich in it. And he starts reading the newspapers and says ‘hmm, that might be a salmonella-contaminated peanut butter sandwich.’ How would you feel if you were a new President elected on a platform of change? So he goes on the Today Show on February 2 [which generated the following media report:] “President Barack Obama is ordering a complete review of the Food and Drug Administration. In an interview that aired Monday, Obama said the ‘agency’s failure to recognize and intercept the peanut butter was only the latest of numerous instances over the last several years in which the agency has not been able to catch some of these things as quickly as I expect them to catch them.’’’ Every new administration that comes in says something along that line. They always tend to order a clean sweep. This one is no exception. But those of you who have been around this agency and industry for a number of years know the history of FDA is always linked to major change happening in reaction to crisis. If you go back to 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, it was the muckraking book ‘The Jungle”….Then we had the elixir sulfanilamide crisis and we got the 1938 act. Then thalidomide and we got the Kefauver-Harris amendments. Then in the early ‘80s, we had the Tylenol tampering business and we got tamper evident packaging, and we got the modifications to the general criminal laws in the United States to make tampering of consumer products a serious felony, and so on. ww w.ipqpubs.com 36 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality Whenever there have been these times that have galvanized public opinion, those are when the real times of change have happened at FDA. We are in another one of those times – witness heparin, witness toothpaste, witness diethylene glycol, witness peanut butter. All these things tend to coalesce around the notion that FDA is not doing its job. And that is not necessarily a judgment against the agency or the people, because FDA generally enjoys a pretty good reputation with the consuming public and deservedly so. But it does reflect a concern that the agency is not able to do what it is capable of doing because of lack of resources or the way it is structured or some other reasons. The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats don’t like the industry and they are more for big government, so whenever we get a Democratic administration, enforcement is going to go up and FDA is going to get tougher. And when the Republicans come in, we are going to see the opposite effect. Yeah, sort of – in the number of years that I have been doing this there is probably some general truth to that. On the other hand, the strongest enforcement-oriented FDA commissioner I lived under was probably David Kessler. But he was a Republican. People tend to forget that. They associate him with Clinton. But he was appointed by Bush 1, and Clinton kept him. He actually had served as a staffer for Orrin Hatch, who is not exactly a liberal. So when Kessler came in, he arrived as a Republican. He ended up being one of the strongest enforcement-minded Commissioners that the agency has had. Remember the seizures of fresh orange juice that wasn’t really fresh? I think those of us in the agency thought the man was nuts when he did that because there were so many other important priorities. But you know there was a very Republican reason why David Kessler was so enforcement oriented. He wanted to restore the public’s confidence in the strength of the agency’s enforcement mission so that other reforms like PDUFA and expedited approval could be put in place without the public worrying that the agency was in the pocket of the regulated industry. He felt that if the enforcement component was strong, the public would be more supportive and more willing to let FDA experiment with reforms that would actually benefit the industry. Interesting how he made that connection. I actually heard him say that at private meetings, explain the whole thing. I found that to be a very interesting public policy position that he took. Key FDA Positions To Be Filled There are some key positions now technically vacant at FDA that when filled will have some impact on the inspection and enforcement tone moving forward. These are ones you should watch. The first, of course, is the commissioner. We now have Margaret Hamburg from the New York City Health Department, who has been put forth as Obama’s nominee for commissioner. [Editor’s Note: Hamburg was confirmed by the Senate in May as FDA Commissioner.] She has a very interesting and very strong bio. She does have a very strong enforcement track record. She is a physician as most commissioners over the years have been – not all, but the majority. Her particular background, I believe, is infectious disease. And she has a lot of connection with the food side of things – more than most commissioners have had in the past. Most have been more from the pharmaceutical side of things. But she has more of a food safety-oriented background. The deputy commissioner was the other front runner for the top job – Joshua Sharfstein, city health director from Baltimore. He is more pharmacology oriented. So some have speculated, is this a precursor to splitting FDA into two entities – a single food agency and a drug and device agency somewhat akin to what we have with the MHRA in the UK? Hard to say. I don’t think we know if that will happen. I know it has been talked about forever. The earliest memory I have of that kind of discussion was probably from 1973, when the Consumer Product Safety Commission was cleaved off from FDA, created as a new stand-alone agency. So things like that have happened. The Drug Enforcement Administration, if you go back many years, was called the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. And if you go back before that it was called the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (BDAC) and it was part of FDA. So if you trace the history of what we now have as DEA far enough, it came out of FDA. So there is precedent for that. Are we on the cusp of that kind of change? Don’t know. What would the implications be for inspections going forward? Hard to say, but those are interesting things to watch. Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 37 International Pharmaceutical Quality Also within the FDA, watch for a permanent appointment as the chief counsel, the agency’s top lawyer. Gerald Masoudi recently departed that post, a Bush Administration appointee. On his way out he said what all lawyers leaving that post always say, something to the effect of: ‘We don’t decide the enforcement priorities for the agency. We are just the lawyers. The agency is the client. They are in the driver’s seat.’ Not exactly – not in my opinion and not from my experience. The influence of the Office of Chief Counsel is extraordinary on the enforcement process. They have to support it. Right now if you get a warning letter, before it is sent to you it has to be cleared by the Office of Chief Counsel. So I am not going to believe that they are just kind of innocent bystanders making sure that all the legal niceties are taken care of. They are hugely influential internally, and their advice is excellent, and there are some brilliant attorneys in there – some people who have devoted their whole lives to this who are really good, and they do and should have some influence on the process. Likewise the top position for the field, the Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs, I believe is still in an acting capacity, Mike Chappell. So that hasn’t been filled. Recently, David Elder….has been moved over from the Office of Enforcement within ORA to fill the Office of Regional Operations slot. It is kind of like going from QA to manufacturing, if you want to look at it that way. It is a lateral move for David. But the Office of Enforcement is a very strong unit within the Office of Regulatory Affairs and really has pan-agency responsibility for enforcement policy as opposed to legal interpretation. So as these positions get filled and the people and the type of thought process and the attitudes that they bring to the job become more clear, we will see that reflected, I am sure, in the change that the current administration has said they want to bring to the process. Exactly where it is going to go we don’t yet know, but we can make some pretty good educated guesses. Foreign Offices Will Have Impact On the foreign side, FDA has recently established offices in China…in Beijing, Shanghai and Quanzhou [see the Nov./Dec. issue of IPQ, p. 20]. A friend of mine who began his FDA career with me in the same district office almost 37 years ago, Mike Kravchuk, has been appointed as the deputy director in China. He is not the country head there, but he will be over the investigators that are going to be stationed in China. This is not a huge operation going over there. You are talking about just a small group of people, but nevertheless a presence. So the activities in China and eventually in India will increase as companies move operations over there and as Chinese and Indian companies begin to penetrate the U.S. market. And believe me they want to. I have been spending a fair amount of time in South Korea lately and I just came back from Shanghai last February. I talked to a lot of companies over there, visited the high tech park in the Pudong area of Shanghai. An enormous number of companies are there. Some of them are local in-country places, little biotech firms and such, others are large and sophisticated firms... Anyway, they are over there and they would love this part of the market. And they are working hard to understand what they have to do to get there. New Investigators And The Learning Curve Within FDA, there is a generational change taking place. Guys like me are retiring, or going off to being consultants or working for [industry] or doing something else with their lives, and FDA has lost a lot of key leadership positions over the last few years. That is okay. That happens all the time. That is as it should be. It is somebody else’s turn to come in and take the reins. And as that happens, once again they will bring fresh ideas and new approaches. They will be confronted with challenges that those of us who were there a few years ago didn’t have to face. And that is going to create some change obviously. One of the more immediate factors is [the number of new investigators – including, as Sharon Thoma noted, 42 in her Minneapolis District]. Do you think you might see a few newer people showing up to inspect your company who don’t have a lot of FDA experience? Sharon and I were talking at the break this morning, many of these folks are very well qualified – probably have a level of academic preparation that is outstanding. But if any of you went to work for FDA, you would have a huge piece of that job that you don’t really know anything about, ww w.ipq pubs.com Dialogue™ Inside The G lobal Regulatory 38 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality which has to do with the agency’s own procedures, how to conduct inspections, what it means to develop evidence (because your work may be needed to support litigation). There is a whole part of the job that you have to learn. So those folks are going to be on a learning curve for a while. To some extent, those of us in the industry may find ourselves ‘training’ the new people for a while. That certainly happened to me. When I was new, I owed quite a debt to some people who were in the industry at that time. They were very tolerant of my early fumblings. [MHRA investigator Andrew Hopkins] told us the other day that he came to his job with 20 years of experience, but… had to start as somebody who was not fully accredited until he learned the job. And that is what is happening right now. So in the near term, you are going to have a greater likelihood of seeing FDA investigators who are still figuring out what it means to be in that job…. ICH Q8-10 Will Influence FDA Expectations Looking at the international scene: As we mentioned yesterday when we were talking about Phase 1 clinical trial materials, they are subject only to the statutory standard for GMP and they are governed by a guideline rather than a regulation. That has been the case for API right along. The GMP regulations are for finished pharmaceuticals. But ICH Q7 has been accepted and even adopted as a rule of law in a number of countries around the world, and has become over time pretty much the default international standard for GMP in the API industry. Even if it doesn’t enjoy the status of a regulation in the United States, it has a highly influential positioning. I think what we will see in the near future is a similar effect with ICH Q8 plus the annex to that document, Q9 and Q10 having more and more influence on FDA expectations. You know FDA can’t enforce an expectation only a regulation. But nevertheless the expectations are important, because what they do when you are an investigator, if you have an expectation and it is not met, while you may not be able to enforce that as a deficiency, that serves in your mind to be a predictor that there will likely be deficiencies if you dig a little further. So when the expectation is not met it may prompt you to look further, spend more time, look for the effects of the expectation not having been met and link those back to what are hard and fast requirements. So I think we will see increasing influence of this triumvirate of new ICH guidelines. Certainly the influence of international inspectorates within the U.S. is going to increase, and FDA is going to increase its presence and influence abroad…. Look for more and closer cooperation between FDA and its international counterpart agencies. I think this is something that will undoubtedly happen. It has already in fact taken place. Criminal Actions May Increase On the enforcement side, I will stick my neck out and make a prediction: I think we are going to see FDA bringing more criminal prosecution cases. I don’t think it is ever going to return quite to where it was in the 1970s and before when FDA established policy in the areas for which it is responsible largely through bringing cases and development of case law. The agency years ago shifted out of that mode and began making that policy through notice and comment rulemaking, through regulations. But when I was a new investigator in 1972, a lot of what was important to us then to understand is what did the precedent cases say? Many of those were criminal cases. In the early days of my career, we criminally prosecuted people for having too many rats in their warehouse. That was the way you went. Nowadays, it is consent decrees of permanent injunction or consent decrees to resolve product seizure actions. It has been on a different footing for a number of years. I think we may see more criminal prosecution cases. I think it will still be highly selective, but the influences are the public outrage and the demands for accountability that we are seeing for companies and executives stemming from the economic crisis and related scandals in the financial world. I think it all began with Enron, and it has kind of been snowballing ever since. And certainly we are hearing that now. Listen to the news – when they talk about Bernie Madoff or the people that got the bonuses at AIG, what are you hearing? It is that kind of time in which we live where for FDA to return to criminal prosecution as a more frequently used tool may be more acceptable in the ww w.ipq pubs.com Dialogue™ Inside The G lobal Regulatory MAY/JUNE 2009 39 International Pharmaceutical Quality public’s mind and in that of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the judiciary than it has been in recent years. A couple of recent examples: May 2007, Purdue Frederick. Three executives were criminally prosecuted under the strict liability doctrine for misbranding of oxycodone. Now this was not a GMP case. Misbranding is labeling related. In fact, the details in this case were that they were alleged to have wrongfully promoted their particular version of this narcotic as non-addictive or less addictive than everybody else’s, which was a false and misleading claim. What is strict liability? Under the U.S. Food and Drug Law there is something called the doctrine of strict liability. Yesterday [MHRA investigator Andrew Hopkins] mentioned that if something goes wrong in the U.K., the QP can go to jail. It doesn’t happen very often, but that is where the ax falls. Well in the U.S. it is the CEO. Even if he or she knows absolutely nothing about the violations and didn’t intend for them to happen, under strict liability doctrine, the higher up you are in the hierarchy of the company, the bigger target you have on your chest. So it works a little differently here than it does in Europe. So these three executives were criminally prosecuted for acts of the corporation, because FDA’s longstanding enforcement position has been that companies are not disembodied entities. They act through the actions of individuals, or they fail to act properly because individuals fail. So they went after the individuals in that case. Also there has been a large-scale criminal investigation involving Peanut Corporation of America. If FDA can get its hands on the people that are responsible for the heparin matter, I am sure they would have some things to talk about. Other somewhat recent criminal prosecutions, this one goes back a little ways, but the endovascular technologies case in San Mateo California involving [an] abdominal aortic aneurism stent, where the company was accused of lying to FDA about the number and severity of adverse events connected with that product. They were criminally prosecuted. They went under what is called a corporate integrity agreement with the HHS Office of Inspector General, plead guilty to the charges of lying to the government and paid a $92 million fine. So these things do happen, and I would not be surprised if we see more examples of that in the current era that we find ourselves in. In a couple of the plea agreements in the Purdue Frederick case, they even mention specifically: ‘I will enter a plea of guilty to count 2 of the attached information charging me with the strict liability misdemeanor offense of misbranding a drug.’ So here is an individual that didn’t even fight it – plead guilty and right in the guilty plea mentions the fact that this is on the grounds of strict liability, meaning that by virtue of the position that he held in the company he was responsible, by definition, for the acts of the company. Think your senior executives don’t need training? Think again. When I do training for corporate suite level people, we talk about strict liability, because it is personal when it comes to that, at least in this country – maybe not in other countries, but here it is a big deal. These pleas were entered in May of 2007, fairly contemporary cases. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some more of them…. Turbo EIR Data Has Limitations When those kinds of things [like contaminated peanut butter] happen, the public in this country gets pretty excited, and this creates an environment where it is easier, in fact it is imperative, for FDA to start thinking about how they are going to do business differently…. I would look in the near future to see both the numbers of inspections go up, the number of OAI [Official Action Indicated] classifications go up, and very likely the number of enforcement actions as well. In our practice, we work mostly with clients who have some sort of problem with the agency – a warning letter, a regulatory meeting, a failed preapproval inspection or worse – and our business is picking up. While everybody else is kind of struggling to keep their heads above water, we are already noticing this effect. We are getting more calls, we are getting called in by law firms. And it is not just us. I am sure our competitors that work with us in the same space are seeing the same thing. So we are anticipating an increase in that.... ww w.ipqpubs.com 40 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality The question was asked about why are we always seeing the same things [in the FDA inspection findings] year in and year out. Well one reason is that under the quality system approach that FDA has, the quality system is always looked at. It is a mandatory component of every inspection. So due to the fact that they are looking at that more often, you would expect that there are going to more violations, just as a one-to-one correlation. The other thing is the impact of this Turbo EIR tool, the Turbo Establishment Inspection Report. When you use Turbo, you have an observation… you go into Turbo, you pick the CFR section and it gives you this boilerplate wording that says that the quality unit didn’t do the right thing, and then you give your specific example of what you actually saw underneath that. If you look at 483s, sometimes it is a stretch to make a connection between what was actually observed and the citation that the investigator happened to pick that generated the boilerplate wording…. The [FDA inspection] numbers come from the Turbo EIR database. So what we get is a situation where the devil is in the details, and a lot of these things about the quality system or the quality unit being inadequate are things you get to by two or three steps: Because we found this problem over here in the corner in that part of the operation, and it is a real problem, obviously there must be an ineffective quality unit because if there was an effective system, this wouldn’t have happened. So it is not a per se evaluation of the quality unit itself, saying it is inadequate. It is saying, ‘something happened over here. Because that happened, clearly the quality unit wasn’t minding the store.’ So it is kind of difficult to go from the statistics that Turbo gives you to really what happened here. And I have rarely seen the numbers sliced and diced down to that level of detail. And frankly I don’t think you can, because I don’t think they can save [the information] in a way that makes it very easy to do that. Turbo EIR has only been officially in use since about 2002… It doesn’t capture API manufacturers either, so there are some limitations. But the whole concept of Turbo EIR was born in the mid-90s when I was still with the agency… [in the interest of] creating a database. It took a while to become institutionalized within FDA. The idea behind it was that wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do trending, just as the industry does trending on the things they find, on inspection observations. [The thought was] that if we are going to create something with a database, maybe we can figure out a way to make the wording more uniform and get more consistency and uniformity across 483s, and we could actually take that from the computer and lift it from the body of the report and save a lot of time, be more efficient. They began working along those lines, and the result ultimately was Turbo, which does a good job on a lot of levels, but it does tend to fog what is really going on sometimes. In order to really truly understand a Turbo citation, you have to look at the specifics that the investigator has written down there, and then you are getting somewhere. New GMP Guidance Some of the more common everyday things that we may expect to have some influence on us in the near future: The preapproval inspection compliance program is, we hope, close to reissuance, at least we have been hearing that for some time. It is expected to be in a form more closely linked to the systems-based inspection approach, so there should be a little bit more cohesion between the PAI and the general GMP. Further drafts and final guidance documents are also in the works that will probably have some impact: Clinical trial materials other than Phase 1 – there is already a guideline on that. The new validation guidance came out recently. There were some changes to the GMP regulations last September…. Minor editorial changes for the most part were made to the GMPs…. So it is a moving target. You have to keep your eye on the GMP ball all of the time. Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 41 International Pharmaceutical Quality APPENDIX IV CDER COMPLIANCE OFFICIAL JOE FAMULARE ON RECENT GMP INJUNCTIONS The following is a discussion by CDER Office of Compliance Deputy Director Joseph Famulare of recent cGMP/ unapproved drug-related injunction actions. At an ISPE conference in Washington, D.C. in early June, Famulare discussed the injunctions as case studies in the failure of the quality system and the cost of not implementing the principles in the ICH guidelines Q8-10. He did not specifically name the firms involved, but the cases fit the injunction actions at KV (March 2009), Actavis Totowa (December 2008) and Advent/Neilgen (April 2009), respectively, which are analyzed in this issue of IPQ. [Pfizer Executive Director Roger Nosal] talked about what is the value of QbD and what is the investment. I thought I would talk about some recent quality system failure enforcement case studies to show the expense of not being able to fully implement these tools…. [The diagram provided in the Q8 annex defines] how GMP works with the quality system, going back from development through discontinuation of the product – so the important emphasis of development and how the quality system applies there going through the whole lifecycle of the product…. Our GMPs are minimum standards. What we did with Q10 is to try to augment the GMPs by describing the pharmaceutical quality system throughout the lifecyle of the product. It is intended to be used together with regional GMP requirements – again, as a basis to see how GMPs and quality systems are meant to work hand in hand. Injunction Case Study No. 1 (KV Pharmaceuticals) Now going through some of these case studies and some of the problems: Of course, this is the type of publicity a company does not want when we file a consent decree of permanent injunction. The only success is that the case has been settled when a consent decree is announced, and we want to lead down a path of finding corrections to the problems a company has had. Here you just see a brief snippit from an FDA press release about such a situation where a company was shipping what we call ‘adulterated’ drugs – also some that lacked approval. Delving into some of the GMP areas: Obviously they violated sections of the Act, and there were serious nonconformances with GMPs, demonstrated by inconsistent manufacturing practice and processes, numerous manufacturing problems – poorly controlled equipment, dissolution failures and content uniformity failures. The firm also manufactured and distributed unapproved new drugs. So when we think about the cost of quality, some of these negative factors are really costly to a company. And here are some graphic illustrations about what this lack of quality had demonstrated. These are some opiate-type tablets that the company manufactured. You can see clearly, with lack of process performance and product understanding, when they went to commercialization they really [don’t] know how to control their process. What you can see pretty clearly is that, yes, these are all meant to be the same dosage forms, but through what was meant to be a consistent process, they were producing different size tablets, and when analyzed, some of these analyzed out in the 140% range of opiate-type products. Some of these resulted in Class I recalls, some of these in Class II’s. So what happened from development, tech transfer and manufacturing? What are the key quality issues that were lacking here? Did they have a good understanding of the flowability, the operation of the tablet press? We are still waiting for the answers on these. ww w.ipqpubs.com 42 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality Some key milestones as to the cost of quality for this company: After an increasing crescendo of problems, a comprehensive inspection was begun, and before the inspection was over, every product that the firm had on the market was recalled. That is what little confidence there was in quality. By the time the inspection was over with, we were into having a complete shutdown, signing of a consent decree, until such time as the firm can produce products of sufficient quality to meet the GMP requirements. So here is what the costs were. What we did in analyzing the situation is try to look at some of the [cGMP] problems that were cited in this particular situation [and relate them to the missing pharmaceutical quality system (PQS) element]: • The failure to follow the responsibilities for the quality control unit [211.22(d)], and relating that to the quality system element of management review. • Having manufacturing processes that caused quite a bit of variability as you can see in those previous graphic illustrations [211.110(a)] – where was the process performance and product quality monitoring system? Maybe it was already too late given some of the development problems. • Failure to review and approve changes to written procedures by the quality control unit [211.110(a)] – change management system. • Failure to follow written production and control procedures. Our famous or infamous validation cite [211.100(b)] – the process performance and product quality monitoring system failed. • Reviewing and approving drug product production and control units by the quality unit and determine compliance with all approved procedures prior to release [211.192] – CAPA. • Failure to have documented investigations. What happened when they had failures? Well, they made some changes which we said were poorly controlled and still had problems [211.192]. So again the CAPA system was not working at all – not getting to root cause. • And failure to clean, maintain and sanitize equipment [211.67(a)] – process performance and product quality monitoring system. So you can see the real relationship of not having a robust quality system, let alone meeting the minimum GMP standard. As I showed you, a consent decree was signed quickly. And the consent decree itself had to reinforce the need to establish systems to assure sustainable compliance to GMP. Again, here is the FDA in a court-ordered document trying to bring a firm into quality and a quality system – not an efficient way either for the regulator to do business. In this particular instance, part of that press release were quotes by Dr. Woodcock emphasizing the need for companies to comply with GMPs and approval requirements, and that consumers need to be confident that drugs meet our manufacturing requirements for identity, strength, purity and quality, and have been evaluated by the FDA for safety and efficacy. So you can see the challenge that we face in trying to explain to consumers who expect that their drugs are of sufficient quality for use, safety, etc. – having to have such a massive recall and a major company having to shut down. Injunction Case Study No. 2 (Actavis Totowa) The second case study really followed a very similar path… resulting in a consent decree on Dec. 23 of last year involving the company and their officers for failing to follow GMPs. This firm already had received two warning letters, and the quality system inspection in March of last year found: no corrective actions were taken to address previous GMP deficiencies; widespread GMP [problems] involving product quality and analytical method deficiencies; and lack of quality management infrastructure or oversight. Again this is another extreme case – all 48 products manufactured and distributed by the firm from its facilities were recalled. I won’t go through all of these, but the issues are now starting to sound familiar: not having management and procedural controls; the Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 43 International Pharmaceutical Quality ability to investigate – to conduct investigations and to write them up where there were batch failures and unexplained discrepancies – looking at how they extend to other batches; laboratory controls that didn’t include the establishment of scientifically sound test procedures; written production and process controls were not followed; and execution of production and process control functions. Again, briefly in this chart we have related [the cGMP deficiency to the missing PQS element]: • The failure of the quality control unit [211.22(d)] to management review. • Validated steps in the process in terms of reviewing/approving those changes [211.110(a)] under the change management system • Failure to follow written production and process controls [211.100(b)] – the process performance and product quality monitoring system • [211.192] – poor CAPA controls as I mentioned in the previous example • And equipment sanitization and use problems [211.67(a)] – process performance and product quality system problems. So you can see how we are challenged day by day and spending our time in the failure mode, and how we need to adjust to upfront quality. The consent decree was signed and entered into by the firm, basically stopping all operations until they comply with U.S. law and GMPs. Interesting when you look through a court-ordered decree, the defendant would have to establish and document management controls over quality assurance and quality control for the firm’s facilities. It also mandates that QA and QC be vested, and the individual should be authorized and include establishment and implementation of quality assurance and a quality control program – all things that should be done, but now under a court-ordered decree. And again the company will have to complete a comprehensive corrective action program before manufacturing operations would be able to resume. Case Study No. 3 (Advent Pharmaceuticals/Neilgen Pharmaceuticals) One more case study: This one is interesting because it had a parent company and another facility in two different states. But the end result was the same: barring the distribution of adulterated and misbranded drugs. The company had quite a number of unapproved drug products in its list of products that they marketed – again [raising] the problem of not even having any sort of review for safety and effectiveness prior to approval or adequate directions for use on the label. Again the regulator, FDA, had to spend quite a bit of time through multiple inspections looking at numerous and recurring violations of GMP requirements, and continued manufacture of unapproved drugs. And both of these firms, which were under one corporate umbrella, did not respond adequately to FDA’s inspection findings. What was interesting about this is that since 2001, FDA had issued two warning letters and conducted six inspections at the parent firm – one warning letter in 2001, one in 2006. What was going on is that as we found a particular problem or a particular set of products that were problematic, the solution was rather than to correct them, move them to the other facility. So we were going back and forth. FDA had conducted five inspections of the subsidiary company. So the first warning letter in June of 1998 occurred there. They didn’t correct the things by 2000. And then in 2007 we were back there again finding significant problems. And again some of those unapproved drug products in the warning letter from the parent company ended up in the subsidiary company. So this is starting to sound like a familiar theme now – the failure to implement basic GMPs and how they relate to the pharmaceutical quality system elements: • Review and production records (noting errors) and having proper rejection and approval procedures [211.22(a) & (c)] – process ww w.ipqpubs.com 44 MAY/JUNE 2009 International Pharmaceutical Quality performance and product quality monitoring system. • Lack of annual product review [211.180(e)(2)] – relating that to management review. • Lack of responsibility in the quality control unit [211.22(d)] – again related to management review. • Failure to have really good validation programs and to validate in process controls [211.110(a)] – process performance and product quality monitoring system. • Lack of controls over computerized systems in terms of changes made [211.68(b)] – failure in the change management system. • Equipment cleaning and qualification [211.67(a)&(b)], calibration programs [211.68(a)], and also written procedures for warehousing of drug products [211.142(b)] – so again, very common theme of the process performance and product quality monitoring system failure. • Establishing the reliability of suppliers in raw materials received [211.84(d)(2)] and following written procedures for storage conditions [211.142(b)] – process performance and product quality monitoring system • And also having an adequate number of qualified personnel in order to conduct operations [211.25(c)] – management review. This time we finally got a handle on both firms and sought a permanent injunction for repeated history of GMP violations, failure to comply with previous warnings, avoiding enforcement actions by moving things back and forth as I mentioned earlier, and continued manufacturing of drugs in violation of the law. Both firms did sign a consent decree in April of 2009. International Pharmaceutical Quality™ (ISSN 1937-6898) is published by IPQ six times per year with the support of PDA. International Pharmaceutical Quality )RUVubscription LQIRUPDWLRQYLVLWZZZLSTSXEVFRP © 2009. All rights reserved. Parenteral Drug Association, Inc., 4350 East West Hwy., Suite 150, Bethesda, MD, 20814. Content cannot be photocopied, stored or transmitted by magnetic or electronic means. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by IPQ when the fee of $2.00 (U.S.) per copy of each page is paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Editor-in-Chief Bill Paulson [email protected] IPQ 1RUIRON$YH6WH Bethesda, MD 2084 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923, USA (+1 978-750-8400). Violation of copyright will result in legal action, including civil and/or criminal penalties, and suspension of service. Publication design by James Austin Spangle for PDA. Inside The Global Regulatory Dialogue™ MAY/JUNE 2009 45