Quality Risk Management in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Warehousing and Dispensing -Practical Case Study from Sterile Pharmaceutical Industry
Quality Risk Management (QRM) during medicinal products manufacturing is now becoming an integral part of quality management system (QMS). Most if not all regulatory authorities have revised their current good manufacturing practices (GMP) to incorporate the concept of risk assessment in every single process regardless to the criticality of the process. Different Procedures in pharmaceutical QMS like deviation control, change control, investigation, customer complaints handling, validation & qualification, product release, etc. consider the principles of risk assessment at all steps. Extensive research in this area shows that there is scarcity of research on quality risk management during early stages of medicinal products manufacturing including (1) procurement/supply chain, (2) logistics/warehousing and (3) raw materials dispensing. To cover the gap in the literature, three practical case studies has been studied by selecting one major step from each manufacturing stage and applied risk assessment following the procedure described in ICHQ9 and using Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) as risk assessment quality tool. As a result of this review, QRM during early stages of medicinal products manufacturing may be useful to avoid unnecessary complaints or delay during subsequent drug processing in the manufacturing site. Being proactive and taking all necessary measures to avoid any possible defects or mishandling is one of the major objectives of QRM and ultimately patient protection. This study shows a model solution for industry professionals and regulators to reduce the possible risks associated with early stages of medicinal products manufacturing thereby paving the way for significant business growth.