John Robinson's Blog (258)

Regular (unencrypted) Email and Text Messaging are effective engagement and communication tools that patients like and have the right to use.

A simple 3 step HIPAA safeguard fully protects Covered Entities from violating both HIPAA and the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) and stymies expensive TCPA class actions. Unfortunately few take advantage of the 3 step safeguard. And the Internet is awash with mis-information that can get Covered Entities into serious…

How to apply statistics to manage risks and verify/validate processes in R&D, QA/QC, and Manufacturing, with examples derived mainly from the medical device design/manufacturing industry. The flow of topics over the 2 days is as follows:

• ISO standards and FDA/MDD regulations regarding the use of statistics.
• Basic vocabulary and concepts, including distributions such as binomial, hypergeometric, and Normal, and transformations into Normality.
• Statistical…

The international agreement to assemble all Quality, Safety and Efficacy information for a drug or biologic product into a common format (called the CTD - Common Technical Document) has improved the speed and efficiency for companies working in global development programs and clarified expectations by regulatory bodies.  Reformatting for multiple submissions is substantially limited.  The CTD has improved the regulatory review processes and enabled implementation of good review…

Technical writing and its role within the life sciences. Technical writers produce a variety of technical documents that are required to manage and direct regulated operations and to meet regulatory requirements. We will spend some time in this webinar discussing those document types, their importance, and the consequences of the messages are unclear or misunderstood.

After setting the stage for this content, we delve into the writing process beginning with the audience and how the…

If you go "off label" with advertising and promotion, FDA's hammer can hit hard and seemingly out of the blue. Advertising and promotion for devices is weak and lacks legal clarity. For drugs, the regulations are prescriptive and guidance documents clamp down on nuances. Marketing and regulatory affairs departments must collaborate to avoid the hammer and penalties of FDA. The roadblock, however is that marketing managers and regulatory affairs managers rarely reach common ground and are…

The complexity and vulnerability of software is expanding exponentially, so fast that Congress removed some device software from FDA’s jurisdiction.  The remaining software regulated by FDA presents a degree of a risk to health that creates a public health concern.  Part of that risk involves the intentional activity that can conflict, intrude or destroy software.  The problems are taking center stage in the “healthcare software” dialogue.  What issues can compromise or defeat the…

FDA Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, has announced a major overhaul of the FDA’s update to the Nutrition Facts label on products. This overhaul, the first in nearly twenty years, is aimed at empowering consumers by furnishing information on Nutrition Facts labels pure maple syrup and honey that ensures greater accuracy and is more science-based. With this, the FDA wants to help consumers make more informed and healthier choices.

This update to the Nutrition Facts label has incorporated…

Process Validation (PV), according to the FDA, is collecting and assessing data right from the design stage till the production stage. PV is set out for all the stages of production for a product in the FDA-regulated industries. The core purpose of PV is to establish scientific proof that any process being employed has the capability of delivering quality products consistently.

The FDA’s process validation requirements are set out in its general principles of Process Validation.…

This is how the current-day situation of administering medical care runs: in the event of a medical need, the patient or someone attached to her is expected to sense the difficulty and call up the medical center to which the patient is attached. Help arrives after this is done. The medical practitioner may come over and attend to the patient at her location if the situation permits. Or else, the ambulance has to be called. All this has to done during what is called the Golden Hour: the most…

ISO 13485:2016 describes a process approach to Quality Management Systems for Medical Devices.  This 6 -hour virtual seminar will help you to understand the process approach and develop an effective Quality Management System (QMS) for Medical Device Companies.  A well-structured QMS meets the requirements of the Quality System Regulations and is both effective and efficient.  The regulations require that manufacturers “establish and maintain a quality system that is appropriate for the…

If you go "off label" with advertising and promotion, FDA's hammer can hit hard and seemingly out of the blue. Advertising and promotion for devices is weak and lacks legal clarity. For drugs, the regulations are prescriptive and guidance documents clamp down on nuances. Marketing and regulatory affairs departments must collaborate to avoid the hammer and penalties of FDA. The roadblock, however is that marketing managers and regulatory affairs managers rarely reach common ground and are…

In Guidance for Industry Process Validation: General Principle and Practices, process validation is defined as, ""...the collection and evaluation of data, from the process design stage through commercial production.." The guidance further delineates the 'process design stage through commercial production' into three distinct stages of the product lifecycle:

Stage 1: Process Design: The commercial manufacturing process is defined during this…

That pharmaceutical companies need to hire professionals with the requisite qualifications is beyond question. This is not only required for the smooth conduct of activities in their course of their day-to-day work, but also because the FDA has set out its requirements for the proper educational and skill set qualification of employees in this profession in 21 CFR 211.25(a).

This FDA section underlines the need for educational qualifications, training and experience to carry out their…

digital payment industry could be thrown into disarray due to the demand by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that all user data be stored within the country, fears an industry grouping, which has termed the decision as “heavy-handed”, even as others, including the country’s largest digital payment provider Paytm, have hailed the move.

In a bid to narrow the growing schism, the industry is planning to send a formal…

Immune therapy drugs can transform lung cancer treatment, giving patients years of extra life, doctors reported Monday.

They found that pre-treating lung cancer patients with immune therapy drugs before they have surgery can help melt away the tumor and at the same time limit or even stop its spread.

And combinations of immunotherapy drugs have helped other lung cancer patients get off more toxic standard chemotherapy while also extending their lives.

The results are so…

FDA consulting services are those services that are offered by independent, mostly private companies in helping to meet FDA requirements. FDA consulting services are offered to organizations that have to meet FDA regulatory requirements. Many companies across the US and many other parts of the world specialize in offering FDA consulting services and these are often the main business for these…

One of the chief aims of the FDA is to ensure the protection of public health and making sure that select types of organizations comply with the provisions of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. It enforces these aims by conducting periodic inspections of the facilities and types of organizations that come under its purview. The FDA is empowered by the terms of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, Sec. 704…

A medical device has to mandatorily make a submission for premarket approval (PMA) to the FDA to demonstrate that the device to be marketed is substantially equivalent or at least as safe and effective as a non PMA-subjected legally marketed device. This submission is called 510 (K).

A medical device company has to submit a product for PMA when it manufactures or makes changes and modifications that could substantially affect safety and effectiveness requirements under 21 CFR 807 and…

PharmAbcine Inc., a clinical-stage biotech company developing novel antibody therapeutics for multiple cancer indications, announced today that U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to its leading clinical compound TTAC-0001 for “treatment of Glioblastoma Multiforme.”

“We are very pleased with this Orphan Drug Designation from FDA for TTAC-0001 for GBM treatment since we have been preparing for clinical studies of TTAC-0001 plus KEYTRUDA®…