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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Recently, after reading about the severity of this year’s flu season, I finally went and got my vaccine, which my doctor had been out of when I tried in October. I received one of the last doses the clinic had on hand, and two other places I called were already out. Apparently, others in the US have been experiencing similar situations. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg posted Jan. 14 on the FDA blog that vaccines are available but FDA is monitoring spot shortages. Read more »

The editorial offices of PharmTech are based in New Jersey, so when Hurricane Sandy hit last month, we were all affected. Flooding and high winds destroyed many coastline homes along with well-known destinations across Atlantic City, the Jersey Shore, and the neighboring Manhattan boroughs. Suburban communities and businesses (including many US biopharma manufacturing headquarters) across the state were without power for days and schools were shutdown for a week or more in several counties. President Obama declared the state, along with New York, a major disaster area. The entire ordeal was quite surreal, and our team considers ourselves to be lucky that we made it through unscathed. Our thoughts go out to those who are still recovering from the storm and trying to get back to normal. Read more »

Pharmaceutical Technology and Patheon are partnering to provide you—our readers—with CMC advice from some of the leading formulation scientists and pharmaceutical manufacturing experts in the world. To get started, we need to know what plagues your CMC strategies and daily work. Email your questions directly to Editorial Director Angie Drakulich at adrakulich@advanstar.com. (*Note: We will keep your name and company affiliation anonymous.)

Answers will be provided by the Patheon Certified Consultants team beginning in the January 2013 print and online editions of PharmTech. These experts have collectively brought more than 200 pharmaceutical products to market, including some of the world’s largest blockbusters.

Sample questions:

• I have a BCS Class II compound for which amorphous solubility is easily sustained, but I can’t get the compound to rapidly dissolve. What are some solutions, particularly with respect to excipient selection?
• I have a compound that is non-ionizable and does not form a stable salt. Are co-crystals my best option and what are the key criteria in identifying a suitable co-crystal?
• I am having trouble maintaining product stability when scaling up a lyophilization process. What are the likely factors causing the problem?

It is amazing what the human nose knows.  Well, those who originally detected a musty, moldy odor in pharmaceutical and healthcare products didn’t know where it came from.  But the odorous taints that resulted in product recalls were found to come from tribromoanisole (TBA) and trichloroanisole (TCA), and have been linked to treated wooden pallets from sources outside the US, the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) reported in a September PharmTech article, which summarizes the findings of the recent PDA Technical Report No. 55 on detecting and mitigating taints and odors from TBA and TCA. Read more »

In 2008, adverse affects and deaths linked to Baxter’s blood thinner drug heparin revealed contamination in the heparin supply chain originating from an API manufacturer in China. FDA identified oversulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS) in the contaminated heparin. In response to the 2008 heparin situation, the United States Pharmacopeia Convention (USP) has revised the quality standards for heparin. Anita Szajek, PhD, and Tina Morris of USP highlight USP’s revisions to the heparin sodium monograph in the September 2012 issue of PharmTech.

Cargo theft, for many years, was a problem that largely plagued the electronics industry, but criminals have recently shifted more attention to the far more lucrative pharmaceutical trade. In March 2010, thieves masterminded a heist of $75 million worth of cancer, psychiatric and blood-thinning drugs from a Connecticut warehouse by cutting a hole in the ceiling and dismantling alarms during a severe storm that masked their activities from the local authorities. To curb future cargo theft, it is imperative that pharmaceutical companies develop solid, globally applicable conveyance security programs.

Read about theft-preventing strategies in the August issue of PharmTech

What will be the future of pharmaceutical outsourcing? What factors will influence the relationships between sponsor companies and contract service providers and what practical solutions are both seeking? These questions were addressed at a conference this week in Philadelphia, Bio/Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Partnerships, organized by CBI in conjunction with Pharmaceutical Technology. Read more »

FDA’s Lucinda Buhse has been spearheading the agency’s spectral library of excipients as a means to improving supply chain security of the pharma industry, particularly focused on raw materials entering US borders (there are 300 entry points in total). She and Philip Merrill of IPEC wrote about the library last summer in PharmTech and Bushe gave an update on the program at the IPEC ExcipientFest Americas conference in late April 2012..

Hand-held instruments containing the libraries are being used at the borders to rapidly verify and authenticate materials via XRF, IMS, Raman, and NIR screening methods. Materials in question are then investigated at local FDA laboratories.

FDA has been collecting samples from the industry to add to the library but only has about 20% of its most wanted materials (see Table I in the July 2011 PharmTech article) thus far. Incoming materials must match a Hit Quality Index of 0.95. Bushe pointed out that the supplier or site of material used for the library has not had a significant or statistical impact on the library index to date. Samples are therefore being collected from various industry players and from various sites.

Looking ahead, FDA aims to fill its library with all the excipient samples it’s seeking and will work to finalize its classification and modeling strategies.