Expert Panel to Explore Future Contingencies Affecting Global Pharma Industry in Monthly Reports

CPhI Worldwide, organised by UBM Live, has announced the founding members of its expert panel, who are set to collectively assess the changes taking place across the industry in a series of monthly and annual reports, with the first monthly report on ‘Formulation & Ingredients’ out in mid-June.

Each panel member has been individually chosen following an exhaustive selection process involving industry peers and journalists to ensure that the panel has the appropriate expertise to independently and holistically examine global trends. In total, CPhI envisages harnessing the collective knowledge of between 12 and 15 world renowned experts, covering the entire pharmaceutical supply chain from R&D through to finished products.

In addition to the founding members, a further five global experts — including C level executives and R&D specialists from some of the industry’s largest  and most innovative names — are set to  join the panel imminently over the next couple of weeks. The members of the panel will collaborate and draw upon their combined expertise to provide foresights into the global pharma industry.

Featured on the founding panel is Brian Carlin, Director Open Innovation at FMC, who chairs the IPEC Americas Quality by Design and Excipient Composition Committees. He also serves on the USP Excipient Committee and is the recipient of the 2012 IPEC Foundation Industry Research Achievement in Excipient Technology award.

Joining Carlin is Bikash Chatterjee, President and CTO at Pharmatech Associates, who brings an in-depth knowledge of pharmaceutical process development, including process and technology transfer across the entire supply chain, having commercialised more than a dozen products in 40 countries.

Synonymous with the term PAT, Dr. Ajaz Hussain, CSO & President Biotechnology at Wockhardt, is an acknowledged leader within pharmaceutical and regulatory science and drug development. Having previously worked with the FDA, Dr. Hussain displayed outstanding leadership within review, research and international harmonisation, having served as the FDAs ICH lead and expediting the progress and implementation of ICH Q8, Q9 and Q10.

The winner of several FDA Commissioner Awards, Dr. Ali Afnan, President at Step Change Pharma (formally of the FDA’s PAT team), is another well-respected industry influencer and was a key contributor to the drafting and finalising of the current FDA Process Validation Guidance.

CPhI also welcomes Hedley Rees, Managing Director at PharmaFlow Ltd, a supporter of lean thinking and production systems, and a zealous advocate of the regulatory modernisation frameworks of the FDA’s 21st Century Modernization and ICH Q8 – Q11, who will be providing his expertise on global supply chain dynamics.

Finally, Girish Malhotra, President & Founder, Epcot International, is world-renowned for his expertise within pharmaceuticals, with knowledge across coatings, resins and polymers. In particular, he is widely regarded as an API production guru, and his experiences in significantly lowering manufacturing costs using continuous processing and batch process improvements are keenly sought.

For the duration of 2013  members of the panel will take part in CPhI short monthly reports entitled ‘CPhI Pharma insight series’, examining topical issues across a total of eight broad themes: Drug Delivery; Formulation & Ingredients; R&D; Manufacturing; Packaging & Distribution; Regulatory Compliance; Contract Services & Supply Chain Management; and QA/QC. The monthly reports will also feature raw data, which will be compiled from the wider industry via the CPhI Pharma Evolution site.

However, the ultimate goal of the panel’s inception is to utilise members’ respective areas of expertise to scrutinise how the industry will change across the coming 5–10 years in an annual report to be produced ahead of CPhI in October.

The annual report will feature a mixture of primary industry data (industry surveys) and a collection of in depth essays from each panel member. Experts will be given carte blanche to prophesise how the industry will look and operate in the future from both an economic and practical perspective. CPhI believes this approach will give the report an unrivalled picture of how the industry is predicted to change, with the survey results providing an overall indication of the sentiments of the wider community.

CPhI is now in the later stages of assembling the panel’s full line-up and plans to announce all participants before the end of this year.

CPhI Worldwide / Pharma Evolution, cphi@ubm.com / www.pharmaevolution.com.