APIC: New Update of the ICH Q7 "How to do" Document
The latest version (version 16) of the "How to do" document - Interpretation of ICH Q7 Guide and "Review form" for active pharmaceutical ingredients was finalised in July 2022 and published on the new APIC (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Committee) website at the end of October. The document further on aims to facilitate the implementation of the ICH Q7 Guideline and provides recommendations on how to interpret it.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued Warning Letters to Amazon and Walmart. Laboratory analyses showed that both companies sold products that contained diclofenac, which was not listed on the product labels. The FDA sees this as a potential health risk for consumers.
FDA Warning Letter for Chinese OTC Hand Sanitizer Drug Products Manufacturer
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a Warning Letter to a Chinese manufacturer. The FDA blames the company in question for a whole series of GMP violations, including to identity testing, cleaning and maintenance of equipment, microbial testing and QU oversight.
Nitrosamine Impurities: Further Update of EMA's Question and Answer Document
EMA's Q&A document has recently been updated and extended. Read more here about the current limits for nitrosamines and how to proceed in case of new types of nitrosamine impurities.
EDQM Publishes new Document on Revised Ph. Eur. General Chapter 2.2.46. Chromatographic Separation Techniques
The EDQM has announced the availability of a new document in the Knowledge database concerning the revised general chapter 2.2.46. Chromatographic separation techniques. It provides a comparison of the requirements included in the 10th Edition vs. the 11th Edition of the European Pharmacopoeia.
FDA Warning Letter: Product Mix-Ups and Insanitary Conditions at US Repackager
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a Warning Letter to a drug manufacturing facility in Missouri. The company failed to adequately investigate the presence of foreign tablets in the drug products. Furthermore, during an FDA inspection, one operator was observed to pick individual tablets up off of the floor and place them directly into the feed hopper.
USP: Stimuli Article on Mutagenic Impurities published for Comments
Since the beginning of September 2022, the stimuli document "Mutagenic Impurities and Potentially Mutagenic Impurities in the USP-NF" has been published for comments on the USP Pharmacopeial Forum website. Comments and observations on this draft can be submitted until 30 November 2022.
The European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) published the long-awaited draft of the Cannabis flower monograph in Pharmeuropa with a comment period until 31 December 2022. Once finalized and adopted it is expected that the Ph. Eur. monograph will replace the currently existing national monographs.
The final version of Ph. Eur. 3.2.9. Rubber closures for containers for aqueous parenteral preparations, for powders and for freeze-dried powders has been published in the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) 11.1. The supplement is now available and will become applicable as of 1 April 2023.
The final version of Ph. Eur. 2.8.2 Foreign Matter in herbal drugs has been published in Ph. Eur. 11.1. The revised chapter clarifies that the quantitative limits for foreign matter only apply to foreign organs and foreign elements; other foreign elements should, as far as possible, be absent.
A proposed monograph for Cannabis Species Inflorescence has been published in the USP Herbal Medicines Compendium (HMC). It is open for public comments for 90 days.
USP-NF Stimuli Article on Analytical Method Precision Comparisons
In the Pharmacopeial Forum, PF 48(5), a stimuli article entitled "Analytical Method Precision Comparisons—A Special Case" was published. It addresses a statistical strategy that has been proposed to compare method precision during the transfer of a validated analytical procedure.
Following the recently introduced new Ph. Eur. chapter 5.26 Implementation of pharmacopoeial procedures, the EDQM published some examples to provide users with practical guidance. How can the critical factors potentially affecting the analytical procedure performance be identified?
FDA Warning Letter: Potentially Carcinogenic Contaminants in Hand Sanitizers
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has again found genotoxic and potentially carcinogenic impurities in hand sanitizers. In this case, it is about an American manufacturer in whose products benzene, acetaldehyde and acetal impurities were detected at unacceptable levels.