The Food & Drug Letter

The operations portion of the supplier quality agreement deals with quality control issues that will be ongoing during a drug’s production.

Companies need to consider all aspects of their relationship with prospective suppliers that could put them at risk for noncompliance with the FDA or increase the likelihood a poor quality or defective product reaches the marketplace.

Despite having an extra year before they must start submitting IND applications electronically to the FDA, companies should convert their IND process before NDAs and BLAs, in order to gain experience with smaller and less time-critical submissions.

If sponsors expect to be ready to begin electronically submitting all applications by 2017, they must first build a framework for handling and retrieving documents and data in electronic form, creating properly formatted files, and authoring and submitting an eCTD.

Beginning in fiscal year 2017, drug and biologics makers must be ready to submit to the FDA in electronic form all documents related to new drug applications (NDA), biologics license applications (BLA) and investigational new drug (IND) applications.

The FDA will soon require drug and biologics makers to submit all new product applications in an electronic format. And within a few short years, the agency will stop accepting files submitted on a compact disc. Instead, all applications will have to flow directly and electronically from the applicant’s computer to the agency’s database. Additionally,…

Companies want to develop the most effective electronic system possible to ensure efficient and reliable submission and acceptance of eCTDs.

Many companies that submit improper eCTDs either failed to learn the intricacies of what goes into a validated eCTD or didn’t adopt the necessary process changes.

When preparing documents for an eCTD submission, sponsors must ensure that all materials are properly formatted so that the review can start on time and proceed smoothly.