Pharma Capsules

Milestones

Acceleration Holds Open House

Acceleration (Lee's Summit, MO) held an open house at its Lee's Summit facility to demonstrate its manufacturing services, which comply with good manufacturing practice. The company now provides services such as filling powder in capsules and vials, clinical trial materials, primary and secondary clinical packaging, analytical-method development and validation, stability testing, release testing, controlled substances, potent-drug capabilities, warehousing, and global distribution.

Catalent Offers Printing Capabilities

Catalent Pharma Solutions (Somerset, NJ), a leading provider of outsourced services to the global pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and consumer health industries, has made sample kits available for its printed components business. The kits demonstrate Catalent's printing capabilities for various packaging solutions such as labels, folding cartons, flexible packaging, booklets, inserts, outserts, blister cards, and compliance-enhancing packaging alternatives.

"This convenient sample box was designed and printed by Catalent to demonstrate our in-house packaging design capabilities from our pre-press, graphics, and design center of excellence," said Brian McCarthy, vice-president of business development for printed components at the company. Catalent's printing services comply with current good manufacturing practice guidelines for healthcare packaging solutions.

Sentry Takes New Name

Sentry Logistic Solutions (Indianapolis, IN) changed its name to Sentry BioPharma Services to reflect its enhanced service offerings and market focus on addressing the increasingly sophisticated needs of its clients.

"We believe our new name better reflects our evolution into a contract biopharmaceutical service provider addressing labeling and packaging, supply-chain management, coordinated global distribution, and fulfillment services supporting high-value and stringently regulated legend drug products and materials," said Jennifer Marcum, Sentry's chief executive officer, in a press release.

New Distribution Partners for Ahura

Ahura Scientific (Wilmington, MA) a leader in rugged, ultracompact instruments for chemical identification and verification, is expanding its global presence with 10 new distribution partners in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Ahura Scientific chose companies with a strong understanding of customer demands and demonstrated success in serving their respective markets.

"Expanding our international channel partner network is highly strategic to Ahura Scientific's growth," said Doug Kahn, the company's CEO. "We selected these exclusive partners following a thorough assessment of their domain expertise, complementary product lines, business fundamentals, and reputation with customers to ensure that our partners are as enthusiastic and proactive in developing new markets as we are."

Q&Awith Gerry Migliaccio, vice-president of quality; environment, health, and safety; and agility at Pfizer

PharmTech:

What is the biggest industry challenge you're now facing?

Migliaccio:

The pharmaceutical industry is facing the same challenges as many other industries as a result of the economic situation, plus a few unique challenges such as successfully bringing new medicines to market and changing payors' expectations. From the pharmaceutical manufacturing perspective, I think one of our biggest challenges is securing our supply chains as they become truly global. The challenge includes the prevention and detection of counterfeits, the prevention of product diversion, and the prevention of intentional (i.e., criminal) adulteration.

PharmTech:

How do you stay abreast of new developments in the industry?

Migliaccio:

I try to interact with industry colleagues and regulators as often as possible at industry association meetings, which is where you can get a true sense of new developments from the perspective of industry and the regulatory agencies. For my daily dose of current industry affairs, I review Dickinson's FDA Webview and several other online newsletters.

PharmTech:

Do you see a new industry trend emerging?

Migliaccio:

I see quite a few trends in the manufacturing arena. The trend toward outsourcing will continue. Strategies widely used in other industries such as continuous processing are taking hold in pharmaceutical manufacturing and will emerge in the coming years. As quality by design continues to be adopted and our manufacturing processes become better understood and highly capable, reliance on product testing will be reduced significantly.

Gerry Migliaccio will be a keynote speaker at Pharmaceutical Technology's Third Annual Conference to be held Aug. 11–12, 2009, in Philadelphia. For program details and to register, visit www.pharmtechevent.com