Continuous Manufacturing- Improve Manufacturing Efficiencies: A Generic Industry Perspective
Continuous Manufacturing- Improve Manufacturing Efficiencies: A
Generic Industry Perspective
Continuous Manufacturing
The conversion of batch processes to continuous manufacturing is
the future of the pharmaceutical industry, employing the continuous flow,
end-to-end integration of manufacturing sub-processes with a significant level
of control strategies. The benefits of continuous manufacturing over
traditional batch processes are evident, but the implementation is still at
snail speed. The pharmaceutical industry is acknowledging continuous
manufacturing as an option to improve and sustain manufacturing operations. The
pharmaceutical industry is making efforts by internally assessing, developing,
and implementing semi-continuous manufacturing processes to improve
manufacturing efficiencies.
Lean concept can play a vital role
to eliminate wastes and to design the continuous manufacturing process.
Role of Continuous Manufacturing
For a successful integration of continuous manufacturing, an
orchestrated coordination amongst several industry partners is essential. The
three major components for successful implementation are equipment and
process analytical tool manufacturers, API and excipient manufacturers with
a focus on process controls in providing consistent supply, and the finished
product manufacturing facility in developing strategies for integration of
techniques for implementation.
The integration of a segmented batch processing and testing
to a single flow is a major task in achieving continuous operations. As
such, processes have inbuilt significant lag-time between operations from start
to end and delivering to patients, which can range from three to six months.
The reconfiguration of equipment to control the quality of the API and
excipient can improve the effective asset utilization by having a
dedicated production line for large-volume product manufacturing. To achieve
such an objective, the organizational mindset, regulation, and technology
balance is a challenge in the pharmaceutical industry.
The success lies in achieving the concept of raw material input
into the system at the beginning of the process and discharging all at once as
finished product sometime afterwards. The key to this process is that the finished
product has uniform characteristics throughout the processing and meets set
quality standards.
Regulatory Challenges
The level of regulatory submission requirements and inconsistent
requirements around the world makes it difficult for the pharmaceutical
industry to make any significant changes to an approved process, as any delay
results in loss of market share in a highly competitive environment. Regulatory
agencies do recognize that continuous manufacturing is a modern manufacturing
approach with the potential to improve the assurance of quality and consistency
of drugs, enabling quality to be directly built into process following
quality-by-design (QbD) efforts. Because a true continuous manufacturing
process is not feasible, producing a finished product batch in a defined
production time period based on variations due to different lots of API or
excipient as input or equipment cycling capability utilizing a chain of unit
operations in continuous mode is an acceptable approach.
It will require a significant reconsideration of the control
strategy and well-defined methods employed to assure uniform characteristics
and quality within specified limits for finished products. These goals can be
achieved by well-defined characterization of input materials, selection of
appropriate in-process sampling frequency of testing, setting of appropriate
acceptance criteria, and statistical process controls with a feedback
mechanism.
Factors in processing, such as
equipment, cycling capability, and interaction of unit operations, need to be
controlled. FDA supports the implementation of continuous manufacturing using a
science- and risk-based approach and recommends early and frequent
discussion with the agency before implementation of manufacturing technology. The
regulatory requirement for the quality of the product remains the same
as in batch processing, but for continuous manufacturing, the sampling plan
needs to be redefined, deviations need to be handled differently,
variability should be controlled, manufacturing changes need proper management,
and the rationale for testing of a continuous batch must be defined in
comparison to the traditional model.
Implementing continuous manufacturing
Continuous manufacturing requires an understanding of the
process and dynamics impacted by interaction with process parameters and
material attributes. The process dynamics require a level of controls including
raw material controls, process monitoring, and detecting and handling deviation
in real time to support a real-time release testing. The batch definition and
control strategy verification should be defined up front. Process understanding
of the continuous manufacturing should be established based on design space and
design of experiment (DoE) at development stage. The process dynamics
controls characterized by residence time distribution help identify the failure
mode or deviation and changes in set-point impacting the start-up and shut-down
on material quality. For an effective control strategy to keep continuous
manufacturing in a state of control, an appropriate approach for individual
process and product as assessed by risk analysis is required. The control
strategy should provide consistent assurance of process performance and quality
and should be designed to mitigate product quality risk in response to
deviation over the time of continuous manufacturing.
Any given process uses multiple raw material lots in a batch,
which require a process to establish traceability in a finished product. For a
smooth, continuous manufacturing process, particle size distribution and
density of raw material etc should be controlled such that they do not affect
the flow behavior, mixing of ingredients, and dosage uniformity. The
monitoring process will require the appropriate use of process analytical tools
and modeling capability. The decision to select a tool should consider
interference generated in testing due to flow of powder, time of data
acquisition with respect to flow, and locations and number of installed probes
or sensors at key sampling points. There should be a backup plan for each
sensor or probe in case of failure during the process, which can affect the
process monitoring and data acquisition. The acquired data are critical as they
support the real-time monitoring and multivariate analysis to keep the process
in a controlled state.
Continuous manufacturing – Cost Saving
The cost of replacing traditional batch manufacturing with
continuous manufacturing could be a significant investment; however, it offers cost
savings subsequently by reducing waste, loss of batches due to failure, cost of
testing, and inventory overhead cost. It is a smart move if the
pharmaceutical industry starts with a hybrid continuous manufacturing approach
to keep the initial investment cost lower and start generating gains. These
gains can offset the cost of equipment and instrumentation faster and provide
more confidence in the newer technology. The manufacturing cost of products
varies with the type of equipment used. Integrating the existing equipment on
site with upgrades to achieve hybrid continuous manufacturing can be a
cost-effective approach, rather than building a complete integrated system to
replace existing systems. It is more appropriate to have a complete continuous
manufacturing system to start in R&D environment, which gives more
opportunity to master the continuous manufacturing technology to implement
subsequently in a commercial environment with more success. Future
manufacturing processes involving continuous manufacturing with increased
processing speed and controlled and monitored quality parameters, which lowers
the cost of manufacturing, gives a distinct advantage to generic-drug
manufacturers.
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