WHO expert committee on specifications for pharmaceutical preparations .

he World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Specifications for Pharmaceutical Preparations advises the Director-General of WHO in the area of medicines quality assurance. It provides independent expert recommendations and guidance to ensure that medicines meet standards of quality safety and efficacy in all WHO Member States. Its advice is developed through a broad consensus-building process and covers all areas of quality assurance of medicines from their development to their distribution to patients. In the area of quality control the Expert Committee reviewed new and revised specifications and general texts for inclusion in The International Pharmacopoeia and received the annual report of the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) the custodian centre for International Chemical Reference Substances (ICRS). The Committee adopted a number of monographs general texts and ICRS. It noted the report on Phase 5 of the External Quality Assurance Assessment Scheme (EQAAS) and on new approaches to ensure sustainability of this scheme through user fees. The Committee further received a concept paper on the benefits of good pharmacopoeial practices (GPhP) and was informed of progress achieved with developing a comprehensive document on GPhP through discussions at consecutive international meetings of world pharmacopoeias. In the various quality assurance-related areas the Expert Committee was presented with a number of new and revised guidelines related to good manufacturing practices (GMP) distribution and trade of pharmaceuticals and regulatory practice. It adopted eight guidelines and 16 technical supplements as listed below including a new guidance text on good review practice prepared under the leadership of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation Regulatory Harmonization Steering Committee. The Committee took note of ongoing work to promote collaboration and information exchange through the good regulatory practice project and welcomed the development of a comprehensive set of guidelines for all national regulatory authorities through this project. The report includes the following annexes which are recommended as new WHO guidelines: . Annex 1. Procedure of the development of monographs for inclusion in The International Pharmacopoeia (revision); . Annex 2. Updating mechanism for the section on radiopharmaceuticals in The International Pharmacopoeia (revision); . Annex 3. Supplementary guidelines on good manufacturing practices: validation; Appendix 7: non-sterile process validation (revision); . Annex 4. General guidance for inspectors on hold-time studies (new); . Annex 6. Recommendations for quality requirements when plant-derived artemisinin is used as a starting material in the production of antimalarial active pharmaceutical ingredients (revision); . Annex 7. Guidelines on registration requirements to establish interchangeability (revision); . Annex 8. Guidance on the selection of comparator pharmaceutical products for equivalence assessment of interchangeable multisource (generic) products (revision); . Annex 9: Good review practices guidelines for regulatory authorities (new). In addition 16 technical supplements to the WHO model guidance for the storage and transport of time- and temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products were adopted for publication in a format which is appropriate to the large volume of this guidance (Annex 5). The newly adopted monographs were adopted for inclusion in The International Pharmacopoeia. Following the implementation of the revised general monograph on parenteral preparations the Committee adopted the proposed endotoxin limits for 11 parenteral dosage form monographs lacking such specification together with related updates to relevant monographs. The Committee adopted 12 ICRS newly characterized by the custodian centre EDQM. The Committee further adopted the workplan for new monographs to be included in The International Pharmacopoeia.
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