Good automated manufacturing practice (GAMP) is both a technical subcommittee of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) and a set of guidelines for manufacturers and users of automated systems in the pharmaceutical industry. [1] More specifically, the ISPE's guide The Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMP) Guide for Validation of Automated Systems in Pharmaceutical Manufacture describes a set of principles and procedures that help ensure that pharmaceutical products have the required quality. One of the core principles of GAMP is that quality cannot be tested into a batch of product but must be built into each stage of the manufacturing process. As a result, GAMP covers all aspects of production; from the raw materials, facility and equipment to the training and hygiene of staff. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are essential for processes that can affect the quality of the finished product.
A group of pharmaceutical professionals have banded together to create the GAMP Forum, which is now a technical sub-committee, known as the GAMP COP (community of practice) of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE). The goal of the community is to promote the understanding of the regulation and use of automated systems within the pharmaceutical industry. The GAMP COP organizes discussion forums for its members. ISPE organises GAMP-related training courses and educational seminars. Several local GAMP COPs, such as GAMP Americas, GAMP Nordic, GAMP DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), GAMP Francophone, GAMP Italiano, GAMP Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) and GAMP Japan bring the GAMP community closer to its members in collaboration with ISPE's local affiliates in these regions.
ISPE has published a series of good practice guides for the industry on several topics involved in drug manufacturing. The most well-known is The Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMP) Guide for Validation of Automated Systems in Pharmaceutical Manufacture. The second edition (GAMP5) was released in July 2022. [2]
Other publications in the GAMP series include:
GAMP itself was founded in 1991 in the United Kingdom to deal with the evolving U.S. Food and Drug Administration expectations for good manufacturing practice (GMP) compliance of manufacturing and related systems. [4] GAMP published its first guidance in 1994. Soon afterwards the organization entered into a partnership with ISPE, formally becoming part of ISPE in 2000. GAMP has enjoyed the support of numerous regulatory authorities over the years spanning the United States, Europe, and Japan and is now a recognised good practice worldwide. [5]
A quality management system (QMS) is a collection of business processes focused on consistently meeting customer requirements and enhancing their satisfaction. It is aligned with an organization's purpose and strategic direction. It is expressed as the organizational goals and aspirations, policies, processes, documented information, and resources needed to implement and maintain it. Early quality management systems emphasized predictable outcomes of an industrial product production line, using simple statistics and random sampling. By the 20th century, labor inputs were typically the most costly inputs in most industrialized societies, so focus shifted to team cooperation and dynamics, especially the early signaling of problems via a continual improvement cycle. In the 21st century, QMS has tended to converge with sustainability and transparency initiatives, as both investor and customer satisfaction and perceived quality are increasingly tied to these factors. Of QMS regimes, the ISO 9000 family of standards is probably the most widely implemented worldwide – the ISO 19011 audit regime applies to both and deals with quality and sustainability and their integration.
Hazard analysis and critical control points, or HACCP, is a systematic preventive approach to food safety from biological, chemical, and physical hazards in production processes that can cause the finished product to be unsafe and designs measures to reduce these risks to a safe level. In this manner, HACCP attempts to avoid hazards rather than attempting to inspect finished products for the effects of those hazards. The HACCP system can be used at all stages of a food chain, from food production and preparation processes including packaging, distribution, etc. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) require mandatory HACCP programs for juice and meat as an effective approach to food safety and protecting public health. Meat HACCP systems are regulated by the USDA, while seafood and juice are regulated by the FDA. All other food companies in the United States that are required to register with the FDA under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, as well as firms outside the US that export food to the US, are transitioning to mandatory hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls (HARPC) plans.
Current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) are those conforming to the guidelines recommended by relevant agencies. Those agencies control the authorization and licensing of the manufacture and sale of food and beverages, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, dietary supplements, and medical devices. These guidelines provide minimum requirements that a manufacturer must meet to assure that their products are consistently high in quality, from batch to batch, for their intended use. The rules that govern each industry may differ significantly; however, the main purpose of GMP is always to prevent harm from occurring to the end user. Additional tenets include ensuring the end product is free from contamination, that it is consistent in its manufacture, that its manufacture has been well documented, that personnel are well trained, and that the product has been checked for quality more than just at the end phase. GMP is typically ensured through the effective use of a quality management system (QMS).
Computerized system validation (CSV) is the process of testing/validating/qualifying a regulated computerized system to ensure that it does exactly what it is designed to do in a consistent and reproducible manner that is as safe, secure and reliable as paper-based records. This is widely used in the Pharmaceutical, Life Sciences and BioTech industries and is a cousin of Software Testing but with a more formal and documented approach. The validation process begins with validation planning, system requirements definition, testing and verification activities, and validation reporting. The system lifecycle then enters the operational phase and continues until system retirement and retention of system data based on regulatory rules.
GxP is a general abbreviation for the "good practice" quality guidelines and regulations. The "x" stands for the various fields, including the pharmaceutical and food industries, for example good agricultural practice, or GAP.
In the experimental (non-clinical) research arena, good laboratory practice or GLP is a quality system of management controls for research laboratories and organizations to ensure the uniformity, consistency, reliability, reproducibility, quality, and integrity of products in development for human or animal health through non-clinical safety tests; from physio-chemical properties through acute to chronic toxicity tests.
The process of establishing documentary evidence demonstrating that a procedure, process, or activity carried out in testing and then production maintains the desired level of compliance at all stages. In the pharmaceutical industry, it is very important that in addition to final testing and compliance of products, it is also assured that the process will consistently produce the expected results. The desired results are established in terms of specifications for outcome of the process. Qualification of systems and equipment is therefore a part of the process of validation. Validation is a requirement of food, drug and pharmaceutical regulating agencies such as the US FDA and their good manufacturing practices guidelines. Since a wide variety of procedures, processes, and activities need to be validated, the field of validation is divided into a number of subsections including the following:
Clean-in-place (CIP) is an automated method of cleaning the interior surfaces of pipes, vessels, equipment, filters and associated fittings, without major disassembly. CIP is commonly used for equipment such as piping, tanks, and fillers. CIP employs turbulent flow through piping, and/or spray balls for tanks or vessels. In some cases, CIP can also be accomplished with fill, soak and agitate.
ISO 13485Medical devices -- Quality management systems -- Requirements for regulatory purposes is a voluntary standard, published by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for the first time in 1996, and contains a comprehensive quality management system for the design and manufacture of medical devices. The latest version of this standard supersedes earlier documents such as EN 46001 and EN 46002 (1996), the previously published ISO 13485, and ISO 13488.
The Pharmaceutical Inspection Convention and Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S) are two international instruments between countries and pharmaceutical inspection authorities. The PIC/S is meant as an instrument to improve co-operation in the field of Good Manufacturing Practices between regulatory authorities and the pharmaceutical industry.
Good engineering practice (GEP) is engineering and technical activities that ensure that a company manufactures products of the required quality as expected. Good engineering practices are to ensure that the development and/or manufacturing effort consistently generates deliverables that support the requirements for qualification or validation. Good engineering practices are applied to all industries that require engineering.
Cleaning validation is the methodology used to assure that a cleaning process removes chemical and microbial residues of the active, inactive or detergent ingredients of the product manufactured in a piece of equipment, the cleaning aids utilized in the cleaning process and the microbial attributes. All residues are removed to predetermined levels to ensure the quality of the next product manufactured is not compromised by residues from the previous product and the quality of future products using the equipment, to prevent cross-contamination and as a good manufacturing practice requirement.
Verification and validation are independent procedures that are used together for checking that a product, service, or system meets requirements and specifications and that it fulfills its intended purpose. These are critical components of a quality management system such as ISO 9000. The words "verification" and "validation" are sometimes preceded with "independent", indicating that the verification and validation is to be performed by a disinterested third party. "Independent verification and validation" can be abbreviated as "IV&V".
A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard.
A Validation Master Plan, also referred to as "VMP", outlines the principles involved in the qualification of a facility, defining the areas and systems to be validated, and provides a written program for achieving and maintaining a qualified facility. A VMP is the foundation for the validation program and should include process validation, facility and utility qualification and validation, equipment qualification, cleaning and computer validation. It is a key document in the GMP regulated pharmaceutical industry as it drives a structured approach to validation projects.
Pharmaceutical engineering is a branch of engineering focused on discovering, formulating, and manufacturing medication, analytical and quality control processes, and on designing, building, and improving manufacturing sites that produce drugs. It utilizes the fields of chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, pharmaceutical sciences, and industrial engineering.
Quality by design (QbD) is a concept first outlined by quality expert Joseph M. Juran in publications, most notably Juran on Quality by Design. Designing for quality and innovation is one of the three universal processes of the Juran Trilogy, in which Juran describes what is required to achieve breakthroughs in new products, services, and processes. Juran believed that quality could be planned, and that most quality crises and problems relate to the way in which quality was planned.
Pharmaceutical packaging is the packages and the packaging processes for pharmaceutical preparations. It involves all of the operations from production through drug distribution channels to the end consumer.
Agile Automation refers to the application of select Agile software development principles, patterns and practices, to the area of industrial automation and process control software development. The term was coined by HAL Software (Ireland) in 2013.
The distribution of medications has special drug safety and security considerations. Some drugs require cold chain management in their distribution.
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