Pharmaceutical Distribution
The distribution of medications has special drug safety and security considerations. Some drugs require cold chain management in their distribution. The industry uses track and trace technology, though the timings for implementation and the information required vary across different countries, with varying laws and standards. Regulation Because governments regulate access to drugs, governments control drug distribution and the drug supply chain more than trade for other goods. Distribution begins with the pharmaceutical industry manufacturing drugs. From there, intermediaries in the public sector, private sector, and non-governmental organizations acquire drugs to provide them to other intermediaries. Eventually, the drugs reach different classes of consumers who use them. Good distribution practice (GDP) is a quality warranty system, which includes requirements for purchase, receiving, storage and export of drugs intended for human consumption. It regulates the division and m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Distribution (marketing)
Distribution (or place) is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. Distribution is the process of making a product or service available for the consumer or business user who needs it. This can be done directly by the producer or service provider or using indirect channels with distributors or intermediaries. The other three elements of the marketing mix are product, pricing, and promotion. Decisions about distribution need to be taken in line with a company's overall strategic vision and mission. Developing a coherent distribution plan is a central component of strategic planning. At the strategic level, there are three broad approaches to distribution, namely mass, selective and exclusive distribution. The number and type of intermediaries selected largely depend on the strategic approach. The overall distribution channel should add value to the consumer. Definition Distribution is fundamentally concerned with ensuring that products reach target customers in the most ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Illegal Drug Trade
The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through the use of drug prohibition laws. The think tank Global Financial Integrity's ''Transnational Crime and the Developing World'' report estimates the size of the global illicit drug market between US$426 and US$652billion in 2014 alone. With a world GDP of US$78 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as nearly 1% of total global trade. Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally and it remains very difficult for local authorities to thwart its popularity. History The government of the Qing Dynasty issued edicts against opium smoking in 1730, 1796 and 1800. The West prohibited addictive drugs throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning in the 18th century, British merchants from th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Life Sciences Industry
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy transformation, and reproduction. Various forms of life exist, such as plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria. Biology is the science that studies life. The gene is the unit of heredity, whereas the cell is the structural and functional unit of life. There are two kinds of cells, prokaryotic and eukaryotic, both of which consist of cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane and contain many biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. Cells reproduce through a process of cell division, in which the parent cell divides into two or more daughter cells and passes its genes onto a new generation, sometimes producing genetic variation. Organisms, or the individual entities of life, are generally thought to be open systems that ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Good Practice
GxP is a general abbreviation for the "good practice" quality guidelines and regulations. The "x" stands for the various fields, including the pharmaceutical and food industries, for example good agricultural practice, or GAP. A "c" or "C" is sometimes added to the front of the initialism. The preceding "c" stands for "current." For example, cGMP is an acronym for "current good manufacturing practice". The term GxP is frequently used to refer in a general way to a collection of quality guidelines. Purpose The purpose of the GxP quality guidelines is to ensure a product is safe and meets its intended use. GxP guides quality manufacture in regulated industries including food, drugs, medical devices, and cosmetics. The most central aspects of GxP are Good Documentation Practices (GDP), which are expected to be 'ALCOA'': * Attributable: documents are attributable to an individual * Legible: they are readable * Contemporaneously Recorded: not dated in the past or the futu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Validation (drug Manufacture)
Validation is the process of establishing documentary evidence demonstrating that a procedure, process, or activity carried out in testing and then production maintains the desired level of compliance at all stages. In the pharmaceutical industry, it is very important that in addition to final testing and compliance of products, it is also assured that the process will consistently produce the expected results. The desired results are established in terms of specifications for outcome of the process. Qualification of systems and equipment is therefore a part of the process of validation. Validation is a requirement of food, drug and pharmaceutical regulating agencies such as the US FDA and their good manufacturing practices guidelines. Since a wide variety of procedures, processes, and activities need to be validated, the field of validation is divided into a number of subsections including the following: *Equipment validation *Facilities validation *HVAC system validation *Cleaning ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Site Master File
Pharmaceutical manufacturing is the process of industrial-scale synthesis of pharmaceutical drugs as part of the pharmaceutical industry. The process of drug manufacturing can be broken down into a series of unit operations, such as milling, granulation, coating, tablet pressing, and others. Scale-up considerations Cooling While a laboratory may use dry ice as a cooling agent for reaction selectivity, this process gets complicated on an industrial scale. The cost to cool a typical reactor to this temperature is large, and the viscosity of the reagents typically also increases as the temperature lowers, leading to difficult mixing. This results in added costs to stir harder and replace parts more often, or it results in a non-homogeneous reaction. Finally, lower temperatures can result in crusting of reagents, intermediates, and byproducts to the reaction vessel over time, which will impact the purity of the product. Stoichiometry Different stoichiometric ratios of reagents can ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Package Testing
Package testing or packaging testing involves the measurement of a characteristic or property involved with packaging. This includes packaging materials, packaging components, primary packages, shipping containers, and unit loads, as well as the associated processes. Testing measures the effects and interactions of the levels of packaging, the package contents, external forces, and end-use. It can involve controlled laboratory experiments, subjective evaluations by people, or field testing. Documentation is important: formal test method, test report, photographs, video, etc. Testing can be a qualitative property, qualitative or Quantitative property, quantitative procedure. Package testing is often a physical test. With some types of packaging such as food and pharmaceuticals, chemical tests are conducted to determine suitability of food contact materials. Testing programs range from simple tests with little replication (statistics), replication to more thorough experimenta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prescription Drug Marketing Act
{{Regulation of therapeutic goods in the United States The Prescription Drug Marketing Act (PDMA) of 1987 (P.L. 100-293, 102 Stat. 95) is a law of the United States federal government. It establishes legal safeguards for prescription drug distribution to ensure safe and effective pharmaceuticals and is designed to discourage the sale of counterfeit, adulterated, misbranded, sub potent, and expired prescription drugs. It was passed in response to the development of a wholesale sub-market (known as the "diversion market") for prescription drugs. The PDMA was modified by the Prescription Drug Amendments of 1992 (P.L. 102-353, 106 Stat. 941) on August 26, 1992. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued regulations implementing the PDMA in 1990 (21 C.F.R. Part 205) and 1999 (21 C.F.R. Part 203). See also * Food and Drug Administration (FDA, USA) * Drug distribution * Inverse benefit law The inverse benefit law states that the ratio of benefits to harms among patients taki ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Packaging And Labeling
Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a coordinated system of preparing goods for transport, warehousing, logistics, sale, and end use. Packaging contains, protects, preserves, transports, informs, and sells. In many countries it is fully integrated into government, business, institutional, industrial, and personal use. Package labeling (American English) or labelling (British English) is any written, electronic, or graphic communication on the package or on a separate but associated label. History of packaging Ancient era The first packages used the natural materials available at the time: baskets of reeds, wineskins (bota bags), wooden boxes, pottery vases, ceramic amphorae, wooden barrels, woven bags, etc. Processed materials were used to form packages as they were developed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Good Manufacturing Practice
Current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) are those conforming to the guidelines recommended by relevant agencies. Those agencies control the authorization and licensing of the manufacture and sale of food and beverages, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, dietary supplements, and medical devices. These guidelines provide minimum requirements that a manufacturer must meet to assure that their products are consistently high in quality, from batch to batch, for their intended use. The rules that govern each industry may differ significantly; however, the main purpose of GMP is always to prevent harm from occurring to the end user. Additional tenets include ensuring the end product is free from contamination, that it is consistent in its manufacture, that its manufacture has been well documented, that personnel are well trained, and that the product has been checked for quality more than just at the end phase. GMP is typically ensured through the effective use of a quality managemen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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European Medicines Agency
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) in charge of the evaluation and supervision of medicinal products. Prior to 2004, it was known as the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products or European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA).Set up by EC Regulation No. 2309/93 as the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, and renamed by EC Regulation No. 726/2004 to the European Medicines Agency, it had the acronym EMEA until December 2009. The European Medicines Agency does not call itself EMA either – it has no official acronym but may reconsider if EMA becomes commonly accepted (secommunication on new visual identity an). The EMA was set up in 1995, with funding from the European Union and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as indirect subsidy from member states, its stated intention to harmonise (but not replace) the work of existing national medicine regulatory bodies. The hope was that this plan would not onl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Counterfeit Medications
A counterfeit medication or a counterfeit drug is a medication or pharmaceutical item which is produced and sold with the intent to deceptively represent its origin, authenticity, or effectiveness. A counterfeit drug may contain inappropriate quantities of active ingredients, or none, may be improperly processed within the body (''e.g.'', absorption by the body), may contain ingredients that are not on the label (which may or may not be harmful), or may be supplied with inaccurate or fake packaging and labeling. Counterfeit drugs are related to pharma fraud. Drug manufacturers and distributors are increasingly investing in countermeasures, such as traceability and authentication technologies, to try to minimise the impact of counterfeit drugs. Antibiotics with insufficient quantities of an active ingredient add to the problem of antibiotic resistance. Legitimate, correctly labeled, low-cost generic drugs are not counterfeit or fake (although they can be counterfeited much a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |