Biological Products: Manufacturing, Handling, Packaging and Storage

Abstract

A biological product is defined as “a virus, therapeutic serum, toxin, antitoxin, vaccine, blood, blood component or derivative, allergenic product, or analogous product, or any other trivalent organic arsenic compound, applicable to the prevention, treatment or cure of a disease or condition of human beings”. Throughout the 20th century, the world witnessed great discoveries in the biological sciences. One of the earliest biological products introduced to the U.S. marketplace was a blood protein called Factor VIII first sold in 1966. The earliest FDA approval for a modern biotech product designed for human therapeutic use was given to human insulin in 1982, approval was given in 1985 to a human growth hormone (HGH) for the treatment of dwarfism. In the 1990s FDA granted approvals for vaccines against rabies, tetanum toxoids, and pertussis. The manufacturing process for a biological product usually different from the process for drugs. The manufacture of biological medicinal products involves certain specific considerations arising from the nature of the products and the processes. Persons responsible for production and quality control should have an adequate background in relevant scientific disciplines, such as bacteriology, biology, biometry, chemistry, medicine, pharmacy, pharmacology, virology, immunology and veterinary medicine. The degree of environmental control of particulate and microbial contamination of the production premises should be adapted to the product and the production step. Animals are used for the manufacture of a number of biological products, in addition, animals may also be used in the quality control of most sera, antibiotics and vaccines. All biological products should be clearly identified by labels which should be approved by the national control authority. The evaluation of stability may necessitate complex analytical methodologies. Assays for biological activity, where applicable, should be part of the pivotal stability studies.