E55.14 - Measurement Systems and Analysis

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE
4.1 The methodology was originally developed (1-4)6 for use in drug content uniformity and dissolution but has general application to any multistage test with multiple acceptance criteria. Practice E2709 summarizes the statistical aspects of this methodology. This practice applies the general methodology of Practice E2709 specifically to the UDU test.  
4.1.1 While other methods can be used to estimate the probability of passing the UDU test, they are outside the scope of this practice.  
4.2 The UDU test procedure describes a two-stage sampling test, where at each stage one can pass or continue testing, and the decision to fail is deferred until the second stage. At each stage there are acceptance criteria on the test results as outlined in Table 1.    
4.3 The UDU test is a market standard. The USP General Notices include the following statement about compendial standards. “The similarity to statistical procedures may seem to suggest an intent to make inference to some larger group of units, but in all cases, statements about whether the compendial standard is met apply only to the units tested.” Therefore, the UDU procedure is not intended for inspecting uniformity of finished product for lot/batch release or as a lot inspection procedure.  
4.3.1 The UDU test defines a product requirement to be met at release and throughout the shelf-life of the product.  
4.3.2 Passing the UDU test once does not provide statistical assurance that a batch of drug product meets specified statistical quality control criteria.  
4.4 This practice provides a practical specification that may be applied when uniformity of dosage units is required. An acceptance region for the mean and standard deviation of a set of test results from the lot is defined such that, at a prescribed confidence level, the probability that a future sample from the lot will pass the UDU test is greater than or equal to a prespecified lower probability bound. Having test results fall in the acceptance r...
SCOPE
1.1 This practice provides a general procedure for evaluating the capability to comply with the Uniformity of Dosage Units (UDU) test. This test is given in General Chapter  Uniformity of Dosage Units of the USP, in 2.9.40 Uniformity of Dosage Units of the Ph. Eur., and in 6.02 Uniformity of Dosage Units of the JP, and these versions are virtually interchangeable. For this multiple-stage test, the procedure computes a lower bound on the probability of passing the UDU test, based on statistical estimates made at a prescribed confidence level from a sample of dosage units.  
1.2 This methodology can be used to generate an acceptance limit table, which defines a set of sample means and standard deviations that assures passing the UDU test for a prescribed lower probability bound, confidence level, and sample size.  
1.3 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety, health, and environmental practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.  
1.4 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardization established in the Decision on Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommendations issued by the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee.

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE
4.1 Application of the approach described within this practice applies the science-based, risk-based, and statistics-based concepts and principles introduced in Guides E3106 and E3219.  
4.2 Application of the approach described within this practice provides a science-, risk-, and statistical-based approach for qualifying the inspection of equipment for cleanliness in accordance with 21 CFR 211.67(b)(6) and is in accordance with FDA Process Validation Guidance Life Cycle approach.  
4.3 Application of the approach described within this practice provides a science-, risk-, and statistical-based approach for qualifying the visual inspection of equipment for cleanliness in accordance with European Medicines Agency (EMA) Annex 15.  
4.4 Application of the approach described within this practice provides a science-, risk-, and statistical-based approach for qualifying the visual inspection of equipment for cleanliness in accordance with the EMA’s Q&A Guidance (Q&A’s #7 and #8) (2).  
4.5 Visual Inspection used as described in 4.4 should only be used in situations where there is a suitable safety margin between the VRL and MSSR and robust detectability at the VRL.  
4.6 Application of the approach described within this practice applies the risk-based concepts and principles introduced in ICH Q9. As stated in ICH Q9, the level of effort, formality, and documentation for validation (including cleaning validation) should also be commensurate with the level of risk.  
4.7 Application of the approach described within this practice provides a science-, risk-, and statistical-based approach for releasing manufacturing equipment and manufactured medical devices or cleanliness that is compatible with the U.S. FDA Guidance for Industry, PAT – A Framework for Innovative Pharmaceutical Development, Manufacturing, and Quality Assurance.  
4.8 Key Concepts—This practice applies the following key concepts: (1) visual inspection, (2) quality risk management, (3) science-based appr...
SCOPE
1.1 This practice provides statistically valid procedures for determining the visual detection limit of residues and the qualification of inspectors to perform the visual inspection of pharmaceutical manufacturing equipment surfaces and medical devices for residues.  
1.2 This practice applies to pharmaceuticals (including active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs); dosage forms; and over-the-counter, veterinary, biologics, and clinical supplies) and medical devices following all manufacturing and cleaning. This practice is also applicable to other health, cosmetics, and consumer products.  
1.3 This practice applies to many types of chemical residues (including APIs, intermediates, cleaning agents, processing aids, machining oils, and so forth) that could remain on manufacturing equipment surfaces or medical devices that have undergone all manufacturing steps including cleaning.  
1.4 This practice applies only to equipment or devices that have been justified through a Quality Risk Management program to have an acceptable hazard analysis, have cleaning processes that are repeatable and validated and where Visual Inspection can be relied upon to determine the cleanliness of the equipment at the residue limit justified by the HBEL.  
1.5 The values stated in International System of Units (SI) units are to be regarded as standard. No other units of measurement are included in this standard.  
1.6 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety, health, and environmental practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.  
1.7 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardization established in the Decision on Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommend...

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE
5.1 This test method is designed to assess the retentivity of a sterilizing filter under standard challenge conditions.  
5.1.1 A challenge of 107 bacteria per cm2 of effective filtration area is selected to provide a high degree of assurance that the method has sufficient sensitivity to detect oversized pores and that the filter will quantitatively retain large numbers of organisms. The model challenge organism, B. diminuta, is widely considered to be a small bacterium and is recognized as an industry standard for qualifying sterilizing filters. Other species may represent a worst-case test in terms of ability to penetrate a filter. This test does not provide assurance that filters can completely retain such bacteria.  
5.1.2 The analytical procedure utilized in this test method provides a method to assign a numerical value to the filtration efficiency of the filter being evaluated under standard filtration conditions. For the purpose of product sterility assurance, additional process-specific studies should be performed.
SCOPE
1.1 This test method determines the bacterial retention characteristics of membrane filters for liquid filtration using Brevundimonas diminuta as the challenge organism. This test method can be used to evaluate any membrane filter system used for liquid sterilization.  
1.2 This test method is not intended to be used in performance of product- and process-specific validation of the bacterial retention characteristics of membrane filters to be used in pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical sterilizing filtration, or both. Process- and product-specific bacterial retention validation should be carried out using the intended product manufacturing process parameters and the product solution or surrogate as the carrier fluid.  
1.3 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as standard.  
1.3.1 Exception—The inch-pound values given for units of pressure are to be regarded as standard; SI unit conversions are shown in parentheses.  
1.4 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety, health, and environmental practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.  
1.5 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardization established in the Decision on Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommendations issued by the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee.

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE
4.1 A significant amount of data is generated during pharmaceutical development and manufacturing activities. The interpretation of such data is becoming increasingly difficult. Individual examination of the univariate process variables is relevant but can be significantly complemented by multivariate data analysis (MVDA). MVDA may be particularly appropriate for exploring and handling large sets of heterogenous data, mapping data of high dimensionality onto lower dimensional representations, exposing significant correlations among multivariate variables within a single data set or significant correlations among multivariate variables across data sets. MVDA may extract statistically significant information which may enhance process understanding, decision making in process development, process monitoring and control (including product release), product life-cycle management, and continuous improvement.  
4.2 MVDA is widely used in various industries including the pharmaceutical industry. To achieve a valid outcome, an MVDA model/application should incorporate the following:  
4.2.1 A predefined risk-based objective incorporating one or more relevant scientific hypotheses specific to the application;  
4.2.2 Sufficient relevant data of requisite quality covering the variance space encountered during intended use, that is, pharmaceutical development, or pharmaceutical manufacturing, or both;  
4.2.3 Appropriate data analysis and model utilization practices including considerations on testing, validation, and qualification of all new data prior to using a model to analyze it;  
4.2.4 Appropriately trained staff;  
4.2.5 Appropriate standard operating procedures; and  
4.2.6 Life-cycle management.  
4.3 This guide can be used to support data analysis activities associated with pharmaceutical development and manufacturing, process performance and product quality monitoring in manufacturing, as well as for troubleshooting and investigation events. Technical detai...
SCOPE
1.1 This guide covers the applications of multivariate data analysis (MVDA) to support pharmaceutical development and manufacturing activities. MVDA is one of the key enablers for process understanding and decision making in pharmaceutical development, and for the release of intermediate and final products after being validated appropriately using a science and risk-based approach.  
1.2 The scope of this guide is to provide general guidelines on the application of MVDA in the pharmaceutical industry. While MVDA refers to typical empirical data analysis, the scope is limited to providing a high level guidance and not intended to provide application-specific data analysis procedures. This guide provides considerations on the following aspects:  
1.2.1 Use of a risk-based approach (understanding the objective requirements and assessing the fit-for-use status);  
1.2.2 Considerations on the data collection and diagnostics used for MVDA (including data preprocessing and outliers);  
1.2.3 Considerations on the different types of data analysis, model testing, and validation;  
1.2.4 Qualified and competent personnel; and  
1.2.5 Life-cycle management of MVDA model.  
1.3 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety, health, and environmental practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.  
1.4 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardization established in the Decision on Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommendations issued by the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee.

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE
4.1 Guidelines for unintended human exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are required by various global regulations as part of international quality requirements, needed as good product stewardship, and are considered the industry standard.  
4.2 Application of the approach described within this guide applies a scientifically justified, data-driven, approach to deriving safe limits for unintended exposures to individual substances. These limits can then be further used to calculate cleaning limits used in quality risk assessment for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. The HBEL approach considers substance-specific properties (type of effect, potency, pharmacology, safety profile, and so forth). Specific approaches are applicable to different categories of substances and in specific stages in drug development.  
4.3 The basis for the HBEL derivation is all available substance-specific data. Interpretation of these data considers the quantity and robustness of the database and the reliability and relevance of the data. Typically, adjustment factors (AFs) are used to address variability and uncertainty in different parameters to determine a safe human exposure limit, although alternative, purposefully conservative, approaches [for example, threshold of toxicological concern (TTC), read-across] may be used as appropriate.  
4.4 This guide supports, and is consistent with, elements of the European Commission (EU) Guidelines for Good Manufacturing Practice for Medicinal Products for Human and Veterinary Use (27, 28) and guidance from the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers (ISPE) (29) in which it is mentioned that relevant residue limits should be based on a toxicological evaluation.  
4.5 Key Concepts—This guide applies the following steps: (1) hazard characterization, (2) identification of the critical effect(s) including dose-response assessment, (3) determination of one or several points of departure (PoD)s, (4) application of PoD-spe...
SCOPE
1.1 This guide describes the scientific procedures underlying the integrative interpretation of all data concerning an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) taking into account study adequacy, relevance, reliability, validity, and compound-specific characteristics (for example, potency, toxicological profile, and pharmacokinetics) leading to a numerical value for the API, which is used further in the quality risk management (ICH Q9) of cross contamination during the manufacture of different products in the same manufacturing facilities.  
1.2 This guide describes general guidance for calculating and documenting a health-based exposure limit (HBEL). It should serve the involved qualified experts as a reference for HBEL derivations and should harmonize the different approaches and nomenclature to the greatest extent possible.  
1.3 This guide should be used for calculating and documenting an HBEL, when required or necessary, for APIs (including biologics), intermediates, cleaning agents, excipients, and other chemicals (that is, reagents, manufacturing residues, and so forth) used for cleaning validation and verification (Guides F3127 and E3106). In scope is the cleaning and cross contamination of surfaces of manufacturing equipment and medical devices but does not include leachables/extractables (21 CFR 211.67, 21 CFR 610.11, 21 CFR 820.70, and 21 CFR 111.27).  
1.4 The principles in this guide may also be used as a basis for setting occupational exposure limits.  
1.5 The principles in this guide may be applied during the development and commercial manufacturing of small or large molecular weight medicines as well as isolated pharmaceutical intermediates.  
1.6 Subsequent-product HBEL values may be set for specific routes of exposure (for example, oral, inhalation, and parenteral) when necessary (for example, because of differences in bioavailability) and for specific patient populations (for example, children) if ...

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE
4.1 Application of this guidance should enable PAT method developers to design and implement reliable PAT applications that avoid many common sources of error around sampling. Sampling is a key element of method and process validation plans.  
4.1.1 Many ASTM standards discuss sampling; however, almost all are very specific to a certain field or application. For example, the “Standard Practice for Automatic Sampling of Petroleum and Petroleum Products” (D4177) specifically covers information for the design, installation, testing, and operation of automated equipment for the extraction of representative samples of petroleum and petroleum products from a flowing stream and storing them in a sample receiver.  
4.1.2 Other useful ASTM standards include: E105 (Practice for Probability Sampling of Materials), E122 (Standard Practice for Calculating Sample Size to Estimate, With a Specified Precision, the Average for a Characteristic of a Lot or Process), E1402 (Standard Guide for Sampling Design), and E456 (Terminology Relating to Quality and Statistics). These standards review similar considerations as those addressed in this guidance and can be consulted for additional insight on how to deal with specific sample types or situations. However, such standards should be carefully reviewed for relevance to pharmaceutical applications.
SCOPE
1.1 This document is to be used as a guide to Process Analytical Technology (PAT) instrument sampling, and covers both the sample from which PAT data is collected and the sample that is taken for reference assay. The ASTM definition of a guide is a compendium of information or series of options that does not recommend a specific course of action. The intention of a guide is to increases the awareness of information and approaches in a given subject area, as such this guide should serve as a collation of points to consider when determining a sample practice for PAT instruments. It is not intended to serve as a practice to be followed. As a first step, one should define the overall goal of the PAT measurement. Once defined, this guide describes various considerations as they relate to the specific requirements that must be met to achieve the overall PAT goal, including the attributes to be measured, impact of the scale of the process, and interfacing of the measurement system to manufacturing equipment (including sampling system reliability). Additionally, it discusses the estimation and validation of the effective sample size and the overall contribution to the measurement. Related aspects of data collection and data processing as well as the use of risk assessments to optimize sampling and to understand the impact of potential sampling errors are also covered. Furthermore, considerations for process control and aspects pertaining to sample withdrawal and retention are also included. Lastly, continuous manufacturing processes require special considerations due to the time dependency associated with continuous operations as compared to batch manufacturing and special considerations are needed for sampling of such processes.  
1.2 This guide is limited to a high level overview of sampling considerations for PAT applied to any type of pharmaceutical manufacturing (for example, active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), solid oral dosage form, etc.). It is not intended to provide technology- or application-specific sampling guidance, or both. Instead, the intent is to evoke a thought process around sampling when developing a PAT application. While the focus is mainly on sampling considerations for on/in-line applications in solids, liquids, and gases (that is, in situ PAT measurements), many of the considerations also apply to at-line and off-line applications in which a sample is withdrawn from the process and subsequently presented for analysis.  
1.3 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardizatio...

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE
4.1 The methodology was originally developed (1-4)6 for use in drug content uniformity and dissolution but has general application to any multistage test with multiple acceptance criteria. Practice E2709 summarizes the statistical aspects of this methodology. This practice applies the general methodology of Practice E2709 specifically to the UDU test.  
4.1.1 While other methods can be used to estimate the probability of passing the UDU test, they are outside the scope of this practice.  
4.2 The UDU test procedure describes a two-stage sampling test, where at each stage one can pass or continue testing, and the decision to fail is deferred until the second stage. At each stage there are acceptance criteria on the test results as outlined in Table 1.    
4.3 The UDU test is a market standard. The USP General Notices include the following statement about compendial standards. “The similarity to statistical procedures may seem to suggest an intent to make inference to some larger group of units, but in all cases, statements about whether the compendial standard is met apply only to the units tested.” Therefore, the UDU procedure is not intended for inspecting uniformity of finished product for lot/batch release or as a lot inspection procedure.  
4.3.1 The UDU test defines a product requirement to be met at release and throughout the shelf-life of the product.  
4.3.2 Passing the UDU test once does not provide statistical assurance that a batch of drug product meets specified statistical quality control criteria.  
4.4 This practice provides a practical specification that may be applied when uniformity of dosage units is required. An acceptance region for the mean and standard deviation of a set of test results from the lot is defined such that, at a prescribed confidence level, the probability that a future sample from the lot will pass the UDU test is greater than or equal to a prespecified lower probability bound. Having test results fall in the acceptance r...
SCOPE
1.1 This practice provides a general procedure for evaluating the capability to comply with the Uniformity of Dosage Units (UDU) test. This test is given in General Chapter  Uniformity of Dosage Units of the USP, in 2.9.40 Uniformity of Dosage Units of the Ph. Eur., and in 6.02 Uniformity of Dosage Units of the JP, and these versions are virtually interchangeable. For this multiple-stage test, the procedure computes a lower bound on the probability of passing the UDU test, based on statistical estimates made at a prescribed confidence level from a sample of dosage units.  
1.2 This methodology can be used to generate an acceptance limit table, which defines a set of sample means and standard deviations that assures passing the UDU test for a prescribed lower probability bound, confidence level, and sample size.  
1.3 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety, health, and environmental practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.  
1.4 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardization established in the Decision on Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommendations issued by the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee.

SIGNIFICANCE AND USE
4.1 This guide will encompass considerations for manufacturers regarding sources and potential causes of subvisible particles in biomanufacturing operations and the use of dynamic imaging particle analyzers as a suggested common method to monitor them. The guide will address the following components of particle analysis using dynamic imaging microscopy: fundamental principles, operation, image analysis methods, sample handling, instrument calibration, and data reporting.
SCOPE
1.1 Biotherapeutic drugs and vaccines are susceptible to inherent protein aggregate formation which may change over the product shelf life. Intrinsic particles, including excipients, silicone oil, and other particles from the process, container/closures, equipment or delivery devices, and extrinsic particles which originate from sources outside of the contained process, may also be present. Monitoring and identifying the source of the subvisible particles throughout the product life cycle (from initial characterization and formulation through finished product expiry) can optimize product development, process design, improve process control, improve the manufacturing process, and ensure lot-to-lot consistency.  
1.2 Understanding the nature of particles and their source is a key to the ability to take actions to adjust the manufacturing process to ensure final product quality. Dynamic imaging microscopy is a useful technique for particle analysis and characterization (proteinaceous and other types) during product development, in-process and commercial release with a sensitive detection and characterization of subvisible particles at ≥2 and ≤100 micrometers (although smaller and larger particles may also be reported if data are available). In this technique brightfield illumination is used to capture images either directly in a process stream, or as a continuous sample stream passes through a flow cell positioned in the field of view of an imaging system. An algorithm performs a particle detection routine. This process is a key step during dynamic imaging. The digital particle images in the sample are processed by image morphology analysis software that quantifies the particles in size, count, and other morphological parameters. Dynamic imaging particle analyzers can produce direct determinations of the particle count per unit volume (that is, particle concentration), as a function of particle size by dividing the particle count by the volume of imaged fluid (see Appendix X1).  
1.3 This guide will describe best practices and considerations in applying dynamic imaging to identification of potential sources and causes of particles during biomanufacturing. These results can be used to monitor these particles and where possible, to adjust the manufacturing process to avoid their formation. This guide will also address the fundamental principles of dynamic imaging analysis including image analysis methods, sample preparation, instrument calibration and verification and data reporting.  
1.4 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as standard. No other units of measurement are included in this standard.  
1.5 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.