Regulatory Sciences
FDA Issues Final Guidance on Providing Regulatory Submission in Electronic Format – The eCTD Mandate is Coming
On May 5, 2015, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released the final guidance on Providing Regulatory Submissions in electronic format. The guidance implements the electronic submission...

Quality & Compliance
Sustainable Media Program for the Pharmaceutical Industry, Part I: Simple and Straightforward Information and Tips
>Would your media program pass the test? The FDA inspection test, that is. In this new blog series, ProPharma Group’s Simona Gherman breaks down the FDA regulatory requirements for a successful media...
Mergers, Acquisitions and Consolidations: Whose Validation Standards Do I Use?
If you are like the majority of those who have worked in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry for at least the last five years, your company has been part of a merger, acquisition or some...
You Were Off By How Much?
Many active ingredient assay failures can be attributed to weighing and charging errors incurred during the compounding process. Even when the active ingredient is weighed and charged correctly,...
How Do You Stay “c”?
Trying to remain compliant with the current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) has its challenges and opportunities. I would like to discuss the opportunity afforded by the ASTM E2500 "Standard...

CAPA and the Importance of Effective Technical Writing
My apologies to you in the technical writing profession out there, but there are not too many topics that are as bland and unappealing as technical writing. Personally, I'd rather step on a sharp...
Quick Guide: Coordinating a Laboratory Move
Moving an operational Quality Control Laboratory is all about maintaining the support of production testing, ensuring physical integrity of the instrumentation being moved, and qualification of the...

Lean CSV Requirements and Planning – How to Reduce Waste, Increase Value, and Maintain Compliance
The diagram below depicts an example CSV lifecycle alignment with ASTM E2500 and GAMP. Building onto a previous post, Lean CSV - How to Reduce Waste and Increase Value, today's blog focuses on...
PMP: The Benefit of Quality Knowledge
There are thousands of drug manufacturers that have a number of ongoing projects within Operations. Often times, these companies seek experienced consultants to assist/guide them to project...
Are you spending too much on lifecycle costs?
ASTM E2500 – Risk-based testing has been in play for several years now. By design, there is a significant opportunity to avoid many lifecycle costs without creating an adverse impact to quality or...
Why Are My Swab Recoveries So Low?
Cleaning Validation and GMP reviews of those protocols are challenging. They become even more challenging at a Contract Manufacturing Organization (CMO) where compliance assessments to in-house...
Where are the Numbers? Coding Test Results to Enhance the Analysis of Qualitative Data
Introduction A key prerequisite activity for any successful process validation is process characterization. Process characterization involves varying process inputs such as raw material properties,...
Quality & Compliance
Continued Cleaning Effectiveness: What Are You Doing? - Part II
My last blog focused on the industry trends concerning cleaning validation verification. Through a quick poll we found that out of twenty-three respondents, approximately fifty (50) percent are doing...
Quality & Compliance
Outsourcing Facilities and GMP: The Quality Systems Challenge
Compounding is a practice in which a licensed pharmacist, a licensed physician, or, in the case of an outsourcing facility, a person under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist, combines, mixes,...
Continued Cleaning Effectiveness: What Are You Doing?
Recently I was asked by a client whether they should continue to do Re-Qualifications or change to Continued Process Verification on their qualified cleaning circuits. To answer this, the factors to...
Environmental Monitoring: The Top 3 Points to Consider
When a biopharmaceutical company builds new or renovates existing manufacturing space, the last consideration before turning the production key is the environmental monitoring of the same. This short...