News

 

Latest Happenings at BioPhia

   
 

Biophia consultants have routinely been invited to give presentations or write articles on key issues within the biopharmaceutical field.  We continue to share many of these with our customers to help provide insight into how these concerns may affect your business and strategies for addressing them.  We invite you to utilize these resources provided and to contact us for further information on any of these areas.


BioPhia Now Offers Complete Package for Toxicological Risk Assessments

BioPhia Consulting is pleased to announce the licensing of Lhasa Limited’s Derek Nexus and Sarah Nexus software offering BioPhia clients a one-stop shop for the performance of toxicological risk assessments supporting both device and drug development. For chemicals (e.g., drug-related impurities, and extractables and leachables from materials or container closure systems) lacking experimental mutagenicity data, Derek Nexus and Sarah Nexus facilitate the identification of potentially mutagenic chemicals by fulfilling both the expert rule-based and statistical-based predictions required in ICH M7 and ISO/TS 21726 guidelines for drugs and devices, respectively. Assessing potentially mutagenic chemicals quickly and easily and submitting those results to regulators can reduce the need for time consuming and expensive in vitro and in vivo tests for evaluating genotoxicity. Derek Nexus and Sarah Nexus predictions are accepted by regulators including the US FDA.

 


Complement Activation in Excorporeal Therapies

 Richard Johnson PhD

The committee Roundtable on Biomedical Engineering Materials and Applications (BEMA) held a meeting in June, 2019 focused on “Materials used in the Extracorporeal Space and their interactions with Blood”. This is the presentation on “Complement Activation in Extracorporeal Therapies” that I gave during the meeting. 

 


Medical Device Development and Commercialization

Marc Minkus, Rich Johnson PhD, and Edwin Moore PhD

Medical devices cover a broad range of healthcare products from relatively simple bandages to complex devices. At a presentation to entrepreneurs, students, and University of Illinois faculty at EnterpriseWorks, we provide some of the current best practices that are used in the industry today for development and commercialization of these medical products. 

 


EU MDR Legacy Device Perspective

Randy White, PhD

The regulatory requirements for follow-up with legacy devices on the market continues to change over time and now requires that these devices by kept up to date with current standards and regulations.  This article discusses new EU MDR directives related to requirements for keeping legacy devices compliant.

 


Win – Win Relationship with CRO’s

Shreekant Karmarkar, PhD

Pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, and medical device companies extensively use CRO’s to meet their challenging needs in research and development, manufacturing, and stability.  However, a successful relationship between the sponsor company and the CRO, even with reputable CRO’s, is not a given.  This presentation discusses key strategies that can be implemented to drive a successful relationship between the sponsor company and CRO.

 


Defining and Building a Robust IND Package

Robin Geller, PhD and Richard Johnson, PhD 

 The IND is a compilation of preclinical scientific information and plans for clinical development, supporting that a drug is reasonably safe for initial use in humans. This information shows that the new drug exhibits pharmacological activity that supports commercial development. Overall, the IND justifies that the product will not expose humans to unreasonable risks when used in limited, early-stage clinical studies. The main elements of the package include: Animal Pharmacology and Toxicology Studies, Manufacturing Information, Clinical Protocols and Investigator Information.

 


Long-Acting Injectable Nanoparticle Technologies for HIV

Barrett E Rabinow, PhD 

Presented to Chicagoland Pharmaceutical Discussion Group (CPDG), Nov 15, 2018

Long-acting nanoparticle (LA-NP) clinician administered dosage forms are being developed to provide greater dosing compliance for treatment HIV/AIDS. While current LA-NP antiretroviral drugs have the desired 1-2 month duration of treatment effect, they do not adequately sterilize viral sanctuaries in the patient, leading to clinical failure and emergence of resistant strains. Drug tissue levels can be significantly increased by utilizing hydrophobic prodrug derivatives, which increases intracellular trafficking of drugs to endosomes containing the virus within the macrophage.  

 


Defining a CMC Strategy 

Edwin Moore, PhD and Richard Johnson, PhD

Developing a robust CMC strategy at early pre-formulation phase of new product development for pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical product success.  Consideration of the customer needs, the physical chemical properties of the molecule, and the critical quality attributes of the proposed product drives development plans.  Startup companies that have novel technology for potential break-through products may have little experience developing commercial pharmaceutical products.  The slide deck “Defining a CMC Strategy:  How and Where to Begin” is an abbreviated version of a presentation given to entrepreneurs at MATTER (https://matter.health/), a Chicago based technology incubator.  

 


Risk Based Method Transfer

Jeffrey Staecker, PhD

The article summarizing the CASSS CMC Forum “Methods on the Move: Addressing Method Transfer Challenges for the Biopharmaceutical Industry” appeared in BioProcess International.  The article summarizes the conference where BioPhia Principal Consultant Jeffrey Staecker presented and co-chaired.  Jeff’s presentation can be found below and the BioProcess International article can be found at 

https://bioprocessintl.com/business/cmc-forums/methods-on-the-move-addressing-method-transfer-challenges-for-the-biopharmaceutical-industry/

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Quality Risk Management Training

Steven Laurenz

Per ICH Q10 Quality risk management is integral to an effective pharmaceutical quality system. It can provide a proactive approach to identifying, scientifically evaluating and Controlling potential risks to quality. However integrating the principles of QRM into our quality processes is complex especially in a pharmaceutical organization. There is much confusion on how to define risk and individuals often think of quality risk management as just a tool like FMEA analysis verses an overall QRM approach. This presentation helps  explain the important concepts associated with a QRM approach.

 


Implementing Quality by Design Program for Drug Product Development

Steven Laurenz

Implementing these principles into the pharmaceutical culture can be challenging.  QbD involves a complex set of interactions, technologies and systems that are not easy to grasp.  The following presentation outlines the important concepts needed to implement a practical QbD program.

 


Outsourcing Manufacturing and Analytical Needs in the Biopharmaceutical Industry

S. Anne Montgomery, with Jeff Staecker

BPIs editor in chief spoke with Jeff Staecker, principal consultant at BioPhia, about his view of current outsourcing trends. Those identified in this discussion set the stage for the articles that follow. Issues that affect decisions to outsource include cost, converging quality systems, change management, and staff training/expertise (including statistical capabilities).


Making Decisions with Probability Distributions

David LeBlond

An overview of 13 continuous and 5 discrete probability distributions useful for risk assessment and other applications. Includes a description of the probability density, cumulative distribution, and quantile functions of each as well as MS Excel formulae for their evaluation. Methods for generating random samples from these distributions and some additional MS Excel matrix algebra capabilities are described.