Recent Trends in Vial and Syringe Filling
Recent developments in vial and syringe filling lines have been primarily evolutionary rather than revolutionary, with a few exceptions. Most of the new vendor offerings have focused on improving the flexibility, reliability, or efficiency of the filling and associated processes; on reducing product contamination risk; or on minimizing personnel exposure to potent compounds. Innovations introduced by one vendor have quickly been followed by similar offerings from its competitors.
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How to Select the Right Pharmaceutical Tablet Hopper for Your Manufacturing Operation
With the costs for labor and workmen's compensation continuing to spiral upward, more and more companies are moving toward bulk material handling to reduce labor content and eliminate manual handling as much as possible. For pharmaceutical manufacturers, reusable plastic hoppers provide one of the most economical solutions...
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Peptide Synthesis In Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
With inherent abilities to block and/or enhance signal transfers in the human body, peptides, when harnessed as active pharmaceutical ingredients, can treat a host of metabolic diseases, cardiovascular and heart conditions, and neurodegenerative disorders.
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ISPE, INTERPHEX and Pharmaceutical Processing have announced the 6 category winners in the 2009 Facility of The Year Award program. Click on a logo below to read more about each winning company’s facility
People love new, shiny things. If marketers claim something is new and improved - it has to better than the old stuff - right?
Detroit used this scheme for many years. Every year they introduced new models that were claimed to be bigger, better and faster than last year's models. In the 60's lower, wider and longer was the phrase that attracted people. Who would want last year's car when this year's car was so much better? You would have to be stupid or just plain gullible to buy something “old”. Based on the state of the U.S. auto industry right now, maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
Pharmaceutical companies and their marketing divisions are now employing this same tactic. New drugs with flashy marketing campaigns are everywhere - you see them on TV, on the internet - ads extolling the virtues of the latest drug have become as ubiquitous as ads for cars - do I sense a trend here?
So are these new drugs with their omnipresent marketing campaigns any better than the “old” drugs they are meant to replace?
The short answer is “not always.”
In a recent opinion piece on the The New York Times website, Dr. Richard Friedman retells the case of a woman with bipolar disorder who was on an “exotic cocktail of drugs” including a “sedative, a new mood stabilizer and the latest antipsychotic medication.” When he polled his residents as to what was wrong with her treatment - he was met with silence - until one resident spoke up and mentioned the patient was never offered lithium - the single most effective treatment for bipolar disorder.
In this example, are the residents really to blame for not realizing their mistake? They have been brought up and educated by a society that extols the virtues of newer is ALWAYS better. In this case, lithium is an old drug with no potential for blockbuster status. Why waste marketing money on something old?
Bigger, better, faster is not always the rule in the pharma industry.
Laboratory Compliance: Making The Grade 
