Quality Management Maturity – A Pilot Program of the FDA

This week, Stacey is joined by FDA members Jennifer Maguire, Nandini Rakala, Alex Viehmann, Carla Lundi, and Lyle Canida. Stacey and the team from the FDA discuss the FDA announced innovative Quality Management Maturity Pilot Programs for Manufacturers of Drug Products and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients. Results of this pilot program are intended to aid in the creation of a future rating system for drug makers, ranking the maturity of their quality management systems. Such a rating system and associated incentives for mature rating could lead to a renewed effort in risk management and provide motivation for companies to invest in their QRMs and the resources surrounding them.

Resources from this episode:

Pharmaceutical Quality for the 21st-century report

Quality Management Maturity Pilot Program as announced by the FDA

About Our Guests:

CDR Lyle Canida is a PHS officer with 11 years at FDA. He has a Pharm.D., M.S. in Pharmacoepidemiology, and is Certified in Public Health. During his time with FDA, he has worked in various roles including IND and NDA reviews for clinical pharmacology genomics and overseeing post-market safety programs for drugs, foods, cosmetics, and dietary supplements. More recently, he has been with the Office of Pharmaceutical Quality helping to drive quality surveillance programs and other strategic initiatives.

Dr. Jennifer Maguire is the Deputy Director of the Office of Quality Surveillance/OPQ/CDER/FDA. The office assesses intelligence throughout the product lifecycle to inform stakeholders about the state of pharmaceutical quality and uses data analytics to drive surveillance decisions. During her tenure at the agency, Dr. Maguire has contributed to multiple initiatives aimed at modernizing the regulation of pharmaceutical manufacturing and product quality including QbR, QbD, ICH Q12, Site Selection Model, Quality Metrics, and Quality Management Maturity. Dr. Maguire has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Industrial and Physical Pharmacy from Purdue University.

Dr. Nandini Rakala is a Data Scientist and Mathematician by background, currently working as a Visiting Associate within the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the U.S. FDA. Dr. Rakala earned her Ph.D. in Operations Research in May 2020, from the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Florida Tech, with her primary research work in Optimization and Machine Learning. She also holds a master’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Computing from Manipal University, India; and a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics Honors from the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, India. During her past 2.5 years with the FDA, Dr. Rakala has worked on multidisciplinary regulatory research projects, employing her expertise in operations research, machine learning, natural language processing, programming skills, and knowledge of efficient quality management practices regarding pharmaceutical manufacturing. She is currently leading and/or serving as a subject matter expert on critical OPQ pilot programs such as the Quality Management Maturity, Quality Metrics, predictive modeling of PQS-CAPA effectiveness, prioritization of Field Alert Reports, drug shortage analysis, Report on the State of Pharmaceutical Quality, quality signal detection and topic modeling of post-market surveillance data. Dr. Rakala has had an opportunity to present her research work on several occasions at various conference seminars, and she is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards. In her personal free time, Nandini enjoys volunteering in community service activities, serving as a judge, playing tennis, writing, reading articles, and biographies.

Alex Viehmann is currently the Director for the Division of Quality Intelligence II within the Office of Pharmaceutical Quality/Office of Quality Surveillance.  The Division performs post-market quality-based assessments of drug sites and products, enhanced by data integration and analytics tools developed in support of monitoring and improving drug quality, to inform congressional inquiries and data calls, future GMP inspections, enforcement decisions, and application assessment.  Alex joined the FDA in May 2008 as an Operations Research Analyst in the Policy and Standards Development staff within the Office of Pharmaceutical Sciences where he collaborated with stakeholders on developing policy and standards on sampling, test method evaluation, and statistical quality control.  He then transitioned to the Science and Research staff where he provided statistical support for CMC review, GMP inspections, and enforcement actions.  Since joining OQS in 2015, Alex has guided the development of OPQ’s Quality Metrics program, CDER/ORA’s New Inspection Protocol Project (NIPP), and OQS’s analytics and modeling program.  He is also actively engaged in implementing Pharmaceutical Quality System (PQS) assessments in support of Established Conditions and the Site Engagement Program (SEP).  He currently serves as the Regulatory Chair for ICH Q9 and as a member of the PIC/S Expert Circle Working Group on Quality Risk Management. Alex received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Maryland at College Park. 

Carla J. Lundi has been with the FDA as a Consumer Safety Officer since 2002, working initially with the Office of Regulatory Affairs in the Los Angeles District. While with ORA she was a Drug Specialist, member of the Pharmaceutical Inspectorate, and member of the Drug Foreign Inspection Cadre specializing in sterile drug manufacturing inspections. In 2016 she transferred to CDER’s Office of Pharmaceutical Quality, Office of Quality Surveillance working primarily on monitoring drug product and manufacturing site quality-related signals for mitigation of urgent quality issues; evaluation and reporting of data related to pharmaceutical quality and drug availability for internal and external customers; collaborating with business partners to determine data to be collected from sites through onsite inspections or other innovative approaches; and drug training collaboration and development.

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