GxP Lifeline

 

  • Supply Chains Are High Risk For Hardware Hacking

    14 March, 2019 by David Jensen, Staff Writer, MasterControl

    The discovery of a mysterious microchip in servers used in U.S. government offices further blurred the line between fiction and reality. While network and software hacking dominates the cybersecurity spotlight, hardware often goes unnoticed and unprotected. Hence, companies are highly encouraged to give some much-needed attention to supply chain security.

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  • 2019 Med Device Trends to Watch For: Human Factors Engineering

    6 March, 2019 by Cindy Fazzi, Staff Writer, MasterControl

    To err is human, but if medical device manufacturers can mitigate hazards associated with user errors, so much the better. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires human factors engineering (HFE) in device development precisely for this reason. Expect HFE to be more important than ever, according to industry experts

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  • Recall Blunders: How to Avoid Them and How to Recover

    29 January, 2019 by James Jardine, Staff Writer, MasterControl

    Even the slightest oversights or errors can lead to product recalls. Learn about the primary causes of recalls, how regulators classify recalls, the four critical steps of recall recovery, and strategies that can help you avoid recalls altogether.

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  • Despite a Focus on Risk Management, Why Do Unthinkable Things Continue to Happen?

    3 January, 2019 by Rod Farrar, Director, Paladin Risk Management Services

    Accidents and errors, in life and in manufacturing more specifically, continue to happen despite heightened levels of risk management and international standards. Find out why time, frequency and probability can’t be factored in to calculate likelihood and learn the key to determining actual risk.

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  • Risk Management and the Human Species

    6 November, 2018 by Rai Chowdhary, CEO and Founder, The KPI System

    Science has shown that human beings are not immune from making irrational choices when it comes to risk management, even in the life sciences. This can have significant effect on manufacturing processes, and ultimately, patients. Learn how to avoid falling into this trap.

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  • FMEA Without Tears: A Prescription to Reduce Pain and Confusion

    11 October, 2018 by Rai Chowdhary, CEO and Founder, The KPI System

    Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is a particularly effective tool in risk management. But its use is often accompanied by fear or pain because practitioners struggle to apply it. Learn how to effectively use FMEA without trepidation to improve your company’s risk management operations.

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  • Top 5 Medical Device Industry Trends in 2018: Software Is More Common and Complex

    9 August, 2018 by David Jensen, Staff Writer, MasterControl

    The inclusion of software in medical devices is opening up new avenues for health care treatments. However, it also means medical devices are becoming more complex. New innovations in medical device development should compel device manufacturers to revamp their design and development strategies. More time and effort needs to be spent on design control, risk management and cybersecurity. The increase of software in medical devices will a noticeable impact on the approaches to medical device design and manufacturing.

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  • Noteworthy Clinical Trends in Med Device to Watch in 2018

    5 July, 2018 by James Jardine, Staff Writer, MasterControl

    Radical, whirlwind change is a core feature of the medical device industry. A clinical/regulatory expert provides insight into the clinical developments currently shaking up the device world and explains how device companies can adapt and thrive in a burgeoning industry that seems to reinvent itself daily.

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  • Top 5 Medical Device Industry Trends in 2018: Atypical Medical Device Technology Will Become More Typical

    28 June, 2018 by David Jensen, Staff Writer, MasterControl

    Technology companies outside of the health care sector continue to carve out a niche in the medical device industry. This trend makes the competition more flammable. Still, in many ways, disruptive technology developers may need to call upon their incumbent counterparts for assistance with navigating the regulatory pathway to compliance. This article discusses some of the regulatory stumbling blocks that could impact non-traditional medical device developers.

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  • Medtech Startups: How to Survive Cutthroat Competition

    19 June, 2018 by Matthew M. Lowe, Executive Vice President, MasterControl

    In the fierce arena of medtech startups, competition is intense and investor confidence is high. A recent Ernst & Young report shows that early-stage medtech firms captured 52 percent of seed funding last year and surpassed the total amount for later-stage companies, the first time it has happened in 10 years. If you’re a startup, is it time to sit back and relax? Hardly.

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  • Why Fraud Control Plans Are Completely Unnecessary

    3 May, 2018 by Rod Farrar, Director, Paladin Risk Management Services

    With risk management, governments and companies often rely on having a fraud control plan. But typically, a risk register is more effective at detecting, responding to and preventing various types of organizational fraud.

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  • UK's MHRA Issues Final Guidance on GxP Data Integrity

    19 April, 2018 by Mark Schwartz, Director, Hyman, Phelps & McNamara

    Glean some insights from the U.K. 's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) recently published final guidance on GxP Data Integrity, two years after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued draft guidance on data integrity and compliance with Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP).

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  • Complaint Analysis: Don’t Forget the Work You’ve Already Done

    5 April, 2018 by Jake Walton, Corporate Operations Quality Manager, MasterControl

    This month's tip concerns complaint analysis, and the fact that much of the labor of collecting the information for this quality step has already been recorded in writing during the pre-market phase by quality personnel.

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  • HIPAA Compliance and Data Security Demand Equal Attention

    2 November, 2017 by David Jensen, Staff Writer, MasterControl

    The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been around since 1996. The components of HIPAA cast a wide net over regulations involving insurance coverage, medical records and tax rules. However, rapidly advancing technology and security threats are pointing a spotlight on the Privacy and Security rules that apply to electronic protected health information (ePHI).

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  • Risk Mitigation in Clinical Research: It Starts with Study Startup

    31 October, 2017 by Craig Morgan, Marketing and Brand Development, goBalto

    For clinical research, Study Startup (SSU) is the pivotal period that lays the groundwork for a successful study. By ensuring that the right sites are selected and target subjects are recruited in a timely and cost-effective manner, mission critical risks can be avoided that lead to runaway costs and delays.

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  • Supply Chain Risk Management: An Ever-Changing Mosaic

    19 September, 2017 Geary W. Sikich, Principal, Logical Management Systems Corp.

    We have recognized the need to better manage supply chain risks for the nearly two decades now. Yet, we still seem to be deluded into thinking that the modern supply chain is resilient to the point of invulnerability.

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  • Uncertainty and Risk: Providing Value for Stakeholders

    10 July, 2013 Greg Hutchins, Principal Engineer, Quality + Engineering (Q+E)

    In Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, the author says the mastery of risk is the foundation of modern life and is what divides modern from ancient times. By consciously or unconsciously calculating probabilities, auditors make intelligent decisions about business processes. First let’s look at a few definitions of risk.

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  • Regulations Vary Worldwide but Risk Management is Common Demoninator

    17 July, 2012 Cindy Fazzi, Marketing Communications Specialist, MasterControl, Inc.

    To compete in today's global market, regulated companies must comply with innumerable requirements, directives, and standards coming from regional, national, and international bodies. While these requirements vary based on industry and the regulatory body involved, they do have a common denominator—emphasis on risk management.

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  • Transitioning from an FMEA Risk Analysis to a Total Risk Management System

    31 January, 2013 Richard Vincins, Vice President, Quality Assurance Consulting, Emergo Group

    Traditionally companies have been performing risk analysis to identify hazards, categorize the risk, and find methods for mitigating those risks. This approach has only been focused on the finished product with a limited view during design controls, not on how product is actually used. The risk analysis has been done as part of design and development with the development team themselves identifying the risks and hazards. What we are seeing over the last few years is that risk analysis or risk

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  • Establishing a Master Harms List: Streamlining Risk Management

    24 January, 2014 David Amor, CQA, MS Managing Partner, MEDgineering

    Risk management is a sore point for a lot of start-ups during their product development programs. FMEAs, FTAs, ISO 14971- the sheer number of acronyms alone is staggering! I excitedly introduce you to another one – the MHL, or Master Harms List. Aligning product failures identified in risk management activities with their corresponding clinical harms sometimes becomes very labor intensive. In attempting to ensure that all relevant harms associated with a product’s component failures are captured, the engineer is presented with an expansive list of possibilities. Consumer risk is a permanent priority: thorough risk analysis is forever coupled with patient and physician safety. Drawing from multiple sources and inputs - whether from other hazard analyses, customer complaints, instructions for use or otherwise - the engineer may become overwhelmed with the plethora of available data and overlook some of the simpler and more frequently occurring harms. The preparation of an MHL gives you a leg up on the competition by giving you a “one-stop-shop” for all of your harms and eliminates the difficult task of assembling a coherent list from a multitude of sources.

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