The issue of patients not receiving essential medicines because they cannot afford them is becoming a serious problem in the EU as the region battles through its economic crisis. In a briefing by the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) on Access to Medicines in Europe in Times of Austerity, it was highlighted that the three factors that will determine whether or not a patient gets his/her medicine are “affordability and availability, in terms of access to medicines, and innovation in terms of developing new methods of assuring best possible health outcomes.” Read more »

FDA’s quality-by-design (QbD) initiative is a systematic approach to designing and developing pharmaceutical formulations and manufacturing processes to ensure predefined product quality. Understanding the critical quality attributes of the ingredients in a formulation, including excipients, and the critical process parameters in the manufacturing process of the finished drug product is crucial for successfully implementing QbD. Pharmaceutical Technology will be holding a live webcast on Thursday May 23 from 10:00 AM  to 11:00 AM EST to examine the regulatory and technical considerations in implementing QbD for coatings in modified-release formulations, including strategies to mitigate the risks associated with alcohol-induced dose-dumping and the application of alcohol-resistant coatings. Read more »

The global market for biosimilar drugs has been forecasted to be worth $2.445 billion this year, according to a new report by British market research specialist Visiongain. The growth represents a 20% increase from last year and accounts for approximately 2% of the overall biologics market. Moreover, the global biosimilars market is expected to experience a steady growth over the next 10 years, driven by worldwide launches of such products, particularly in the EU and US. Read more »

Evidence of health outcomes is what payers want to see. As a result, biotech companies are now focussing more on demonstrating economic value, for example, by showing survival benefit of a cancer drug or superiority to branded or generic competitors. Read more »

Guest blog written by Chris Watson, product manager of Exco InTouch.

AstraZeneca and Exco InTouch have announced a program to develop and launch interactive mobile phone and internet-based health tools that will help patients in the UK and their healthcare providers to track and manage chronic conditions. AstraZeneca’s R&D organisation and Exco InTouch are developing the tool with an initial focus on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Read more »

As pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies intensify product development in biologics, they are tasked with meeting the challenges of biologic-based drug development and manufacturing. Unlike traditional small-molecule drugs, stability studies for biopharmaceuticals can be one of the most critical and challenging aspects of large-molecule drug development. The size and complexity of most proteins provide fertile ground for intramolecular changes and multiple routes of degradation, and to assess their effects, each must be correlated to the bioactivity of the drug. Pharmaceutical Technology will examine biopharmaceutical stability studies in more depth by gaining input from leading industry experts, in a live webcast, “New Strategies for Biopharmaceutical Stability Testing,” on Thursday May 9th from 2:00 to 3:00 PM EST. Read more »

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) International Vice-President Jay Taylor has expressed the organization’s concerns over the Office of the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) 2013 Special 301 Report. The Special 301 Report, released in May 2013, is an annual review of the state of intellectual property (IP) rights protection and enforcement in trading partners around the world and reflects the US Administration’s resolve to maintain IP protection worldwide.

Expressing appreciation for USTR’s efforts to ensure IP protection, Taylor expressed dismay that an out-of-cycle review was not granted for India. “The deteriorating protections for patented medicines in India have become increasingly concerning,” Taylor said in a PhRMA blog. “Over the past year, the Government of India has issued several intellectual property decisions that have disproportionately impacted US biopharmaceutical companies and a number of other innovative sectors. The IP regime in India has been structured and applied in ways that prop up local industries to the detriment of US jobs and the worlds patients.”

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Just about every federal program and affected interest group is pressing for relief from the 8% across-the-board cuts in funding imposed by the budget sequestration mandate. Recent fast action on Capitol Hill to curb personnel furloughs of air traffic controllers by the Federal Aviation Administration, though, has spurred lobbying for similar treatment across many fronts. Read more »

 Quality by Design (QbD) is changing drug development and manufacturing. The science- and risk-based approach inherent in a QbD paradigm increases process understanding and leads to better drug development and manufacturing. Sharing lessons learned and strategies for applying QbD in solid dosage development and manufacturing is valuable. Pharmaceutical Technology will address this topic in a webcast, “A Pragmatic Application of QbD: Turning Theory into Tangible Success” this Thursday May 2 from 11:00 to 12:00 PM EST.

Two industry experts will share their experience with QbD and offer insight into how the practical application of QbD contributed to the success of their projects. Through several case studies, these experts will provide lessons learned and advice on the measures they took that enabled the success of their projects; steps that can be universally applied to other projects.

Don Barbieri, associate director of formulation and process development at Patheon, will present case studies demonstrating different aspects of the QbD approach, including identifying CQAs (critical quality attributes) and CPPs (critical process parameters) as well as how to perform risk assessment, incorporate risk mitigation into a process, and how to develop a design of experiments (DoE).

David Smith, pharmaceutical specialist, formulation and process development at Patheon, will present a case study where the pragmatic application of QbD enabled a successful technology transfer of a film-coated tablet from Phase III to commercial scale.

Further information, including how to register for the complimentary webcast, may be found  here.

As I visited the exhibits and attended the conference sessions at INTERPHEX 2013 last week, I noticed a focus on equipment flexibility and ease-of-cleaning and changeover that enables manufacturing efficiency. Read more »