FDA Spectral Library and Border Patrol Work Under Way

FDA’s Lucinda Buhse has been spearheading the agency’s spectral library of excipients as a means to improving supply chain security of the pharma industry, particularly focused on raw materials entering US borders (there are 300 entry points in total). She and Philip Merrill of IPEC wrote about the library last summer in PharmTech and Bushe gave an update on the program at the IPEC ExcipientFest Americas conference in late April 2012..

Hand-held instruments containing the libraries are being used at the borders to rapidly verify and authenticate materials via XRF, IMS, Raman, and NIR screening methods. Materials in question are then investigated at local FDA laboratories.

FDA has been collecting samples from the industry to add to the library but only has about 20% of its most wanted materials (see Table I in the July 2011 PharmTech article) thus far. Incoming materials must match a Hit Quality Index of 0.95. Bushe pointed out that the supplier or site of material used for the library has not had a significant or statistical impact on the library index to date. Samples are therefore being collected from various industry players and from various sites.

Looking ahead, FDA aims to fill its library with all the excipient samples it’s seeking and will work to finalize its classification and modeling strategies.