Fill-Finish

The role of microbial testing to ensure the sterility of aseptically filled sterile products is explained, from the product development phase to in-process monitoring to finished product testing.

FDA's draft guidance on aseptic processing contains some inherent difficulties, including unrealistic expectations of sterility and microbial quantification, an absence of harmonization with international rules, and failure to support new technologies or a risk-based approach. The authors propose a science-based alternative.

In spite of regulatory uncertainties, the industry continues to develop improved aseptic processing technologies.

FDA's aseptic processing draft guidance and the industry's state-of-the-art isolator technologies prepare manufacturers for the next generation of contamination control solutions.

Isolator technology can be used in clinical product formulation and filling facilities to ensure environmental control and reduce contamination risk in aseptic processing.

Members of FDA, industry, and academia formed a working group within PQRI to openly discuss topics from a scientific perspective and provide formalized clarifications and recommendations to FDA to be considered and incorporated into FDA's draft guidance on aseptic processing.

The authors describe the solicitation of industry input for the guidance through a process that included a 2002 meeting of the Advisory Committe on Pharmaceutical Science and the subsequent formation of the PQRI Aseptic Processing Working Group.

Training for aseptic processing cleanrooms must be a dynamic process to meet job requirements and industry demands. The author discusses various approaches that may be taken to ensure a successful training session.

When FDA reviewed PDA's Technical Report No. 34 about isolator systems, significant differences of opinion between the organizations came to light.