Author: Suzanne Broussard, PhD
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is promoting the Quality Overall Summary (QOS) as a powerful tool to promote effective communication between regulators and sponsors of drugs as well as a tool that can substantially impact the efficiency and quality of the regulator’s assessment. The QOS is required for all New Drug Applications (NDAs), Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) and Biologics License Applications (BLAs), thus the QOS has significant potential to impact the regulatory review process for getting marketing approval.
The QOS summarizes all quality-related information in the application. As part of Module 2 of the electronic Common Technical Document (eCTD), the QOS links to the sponsor’s larger body of data in Module 3. The QOS is expected to provide the regulator with sufficient information to understand the contents of Module 3 in a high-level overview. However, FDA suggests that many sponsors are falling short of these expectations and are not fully utilizing this powerful tool as an effective guide for regulators to assess the application.
In order to help sponsors prepare a QOS that facilitates the regulators’ understanding of the product’s risks as outlined in the NDA, ANDA, or BLA applications, the FDA’s Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ) published a white paper that provides practical tips for putting the quality pieces together and explaining what regulators would like to see in the QOS: A Regulators Perspective on the Quality Overall Summary: Putting the Pieces Together.
The QOS provides the sponsor with an opportunity to summarize the key aspects of the new drug or biologics application, explain specific items for the regulators to consider, and extend to post-approval comments. Yet, a poorly written QOS requires regulators to spend significant effort to “understand, summarize, collate, and interpret quality data from module 3 (Figure 1).
The FDA’s white paper describes key considerations for creating a high–quality QOS to ensure regulators have a good idea of the potential risk to the patient and the control of this risk in the commercially manufactured product. The 3 key considerations are:
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Author: Suzanne Broussard, PhD
Biological products warrant special regulatory consideration because of their complex nature and susceptibility to variation during manufacturing. Biologics are not only complex in their physical structure, they are produced from living organisms and thus pose a myriad of potential issues in the manufacturing and isolation processes that all have the potential to induce immunogenicity. Regulations for developing a biological product take these potential risks into consideration
In this second piece evaluating BLA and NDA, we focus on understanding some of the nuances between biologic and drug development. See the first BLA vs NDA blog for a more focused look at regulations.
The manufacturing processes for biological products are different than processes for pharmaceuticals. Traditional drug products are typically manufactured using pure chemical substances that are sterile, and the end products can be relatively easily analyzed. On the other hand, biological products are made from living organisms and are much more complex in nature — making product analysis very difficult. Indeed, most biological products are defined by the manufacturing processes used for production. The manufacturing process and manufacturing facilities are so crucial to biologics that “purity” is part of the agency’s requirements for licensing.
(more…)Author: Suzanne Broussard, PhD
The unique characteristics and manufacturing processes of therapeutic biological products and drug compounds lays the framework for the differences in regulatory requirements for getting into the marketplace. While, biologics and drugs are both used for the same purposes — to treat, prevent, and cure diseases — biological products are much more complex in nature. By comparison, common drug compounds are relatively simple.
What exactly is a biological product?
Biological products are comprised of large and complex protein structures that are primarily derived from living material, including human, animal, and microorganisms. Proteins are often post-transcriptional modified, including glycosylation, oxidation, deamidation, and this has a profound effect on protein properties. As seen in the figure below, this contrast with conventional drug compounds, such as aspirin, that have a smaller molecular weight and are chemically synthesized. Peptides can fall into either regulatory category and are comprised of amino acids just like a protein, but peptides are smaller.
The vast differences in complexity and size are depicted in this figure.
Defining biological products and drug compounds is the first step to understanding the common and unique regulatory requirements for each. FDA’s definition is the only one that matters for the purpose of obtaining marketing approval in the United States, and the definition for biologics is in a transition period.
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In this discussion, we provide an overview of how to plan and coordinate change within an organization to meet upcoming EU IVDR regulatory requirements. We will be highlighting key steps involved in helping medical affairs transition to a more rigorous regulatory environments, and how to evaluate talent gaps, team leadership composition, and process challenges of your product portfolio.
In this discussion, our panel of proven leaders discuss the key elements that support and propel the innovation process in the medical device, pharmaceutical, and IVD industries. We will be highlighting key areas of the process, important players in the pathway to the market, and how successful innovations spawn new innovations in new markets such as the digital health space, and more.
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