To all of our readers – Have a happy holiday season and a very happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year. The Lachman blog will be taking a break over the holiday starting Friday, December 21st (unless something extremely urgent occurs) and I hope that all of you will rejoin me in the New Year as we follow the ever-changing landscape of FDA regulatory science,
Today, the FDA made final and released a revision to a 2016 draft guidance titled Data Integrity and Compliance With Drug CGMP Questions and Answers (here). The document was revised “based on comments made to the draft as well as requests for FDA thinking on current best practices and additional examples.”
The guidance does have additional examples and clarifying language.
It is understandable that during an investigation the initial focus is determining the cause along with the associated impact assessment and the identification and implementation of a corrective action. However, what can get overlooked during the investigation process is the importance of trending. This is a key component of root cause confirmation, assessing the appropriateness and effectivity of corrective action and determining whether there are any underlying cause/s for noted repeat incidents.
The Pink Sheet recently posted an article authored by James Davison, Ph.D. Vice President of Lachman Consultants that addresses the criticality of Data Integrity outside of the laboratory.
The article highlights that regulators are making clear that issues of data integrity go well beyond what happens in drug laboratories or clinical trials and that the data compliance issues that have plagued the laboratories are relevant to areas such as manufacturing.
