Dennis Jenke

A simulating leaching (migration) study was performed on a model container-closure system relevant to parenteral and ophthalmic drug products (PODP). This container-closure system consisted of a linear-low density polyethylene bottle (primary container), a polypropylene cap and an elastomeric cap liner (closure), an adhesive label (labeling) and a foil overpouch (secondary container). The bottles were filled with simulating solvents (aqueous salt/acid mixture at pH 2.5, aqueous buffer at pH 9.5, and 1/1(v/v) IPA/water), a label was affixed to the filled and capped bottles, the filled bottles were placed into the foil overpouch and the filled and pouched units were stored either upright or inverted for up to 6 months at 40°C. After storage, the leaching solutions were tested for leached substances using multiple complementary analytical techniques to address volatile, semi-volatile, and non-volatile organic and inorganic extractables as potential leachables. The leaching data generated supported several conclusions, including that (a) the extractables (leachables) profile revealed by a simulating leaching study can qualitatively be correlated with compositional information for materials of construction, (b) the chemical nature of both the extracting medium and the individual extractables (leachables) can markedly affect the resulting profile and (c) while direct contact between a drug product and a system's material of construction may exacerbate the leaching of substances from that material by the drug product, direct contact is not a prerequisite for migration and leaching to occur.

Organic extractables and leachables (E&L) from drug product packaging, manufacturing components, and delivery devices are of concern as they could impact product quality and/or user safety. Proper E&L assessment involves chromatographic profiling of a drug product or extraction solvent, including liquid chromatography with UV absorption and mass spectrometric detection (LC/UV/MS), to uncover these substances and establish their identities and concentrations. Relative retention time (RRT) could be used as one parameter for identifying E&L and relative response factors (RRFs) could be used for quantifying extractables if (a) RRT and RRFs were consistent across various LC/UV/MS methods and instrument systems used for profiling and (b) a database existed for RRT and RRFs. This manuscript addresses (a) by examining the variation in RRT and RRF for model extractables across variations to a specified LC/UV/MS method. Creating and populating a database of relative retention and response data (b) is beyond the manuscript’s scope. Studies which examined small, and more controlled, variations to the method and larger, and less controlled, variations were performed. These assessments support the conclusions that if the operational parameters of the LC/UV/MS are specified and if only relatively minor deviations from these parameters are allowed, then RRTs are sufficiently reproducible that they are an effective means of securing tentative extractable’s identities and UV RRFs are sufficiently reproducible that they provide accurate extractable’s concentrations. MS RRFs are less reproducible and only estimate concentration. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

An accelerating trend in the pharmaceutical industry is the use of plastic components in systems used to produce an active pharmaceutical ingredient or a finished drug product. If the active pharmaceutical ingredient, the finished drug product, or any solution used to generate them (for example, a process stream such as media, buffers, eluents, and the like) is contacted by a plastic component at any time during the production process, substances leached from the component may accumulate in the active pharmaceutical ingredient or finished drug product, affecting its safety and/or efficacy. In this article the author develops and justifies a semi-quantitative risk evaluation matrix that is used to determine the amount and rigor of component testing necessary and appropriate to establish that the component is chemically suitable for its intended use. By considering key properties of the component, the contact medium, the contact conditions, and the active pharmaceutical ingredient's or finished drug product's clinical conditions of use, use of the risk evaluation matrix produces a risk score whose magnitude reflects the accumulated risk that the component will interact with the contact solution to such an extent that component-related extractables will accumulate in the active pharmaceutical ingredient or finished drug product as leachables at levels sufficiently high to adversely affect user safety. The magnitude of the risk score establishes the amount and rigor of the testing that is required to select and qualify the component, and such testing is broadly grouped into three categories: baseline assessment, general testing, and full testing (extractables profiling).

This commentary considers the standardization of analytical methods used in extractables and leachables screening and proposes that method standardization is not the end goal but rather the necessary first step for enabling efficient, effective, robust, and consistent extractables and leachables profiling. Standardized methods are the platform upon which a knowledge set and a knowledge management process can be built, and it is the combination of the methods, the set, and the process that facilitates extractables and leachables profiling.

Ethanol/water mixtures are frequently used as simulating solvents in extractables studies. However, the basis for determining and justifying the right ethanol proportion in a simulating solvent for a particular drug product or solution has not been previously established.

Elemental impurities in drug products can arise from a number of different sources and via a number of different means, including the active pharmaceutical ingredient, excipients, the vehicle, and leaching of elemental entities that are present in the drug product's manufacturing or packaging systems. Thus, knowledge about the presence, level, and likelihood of leaching of elemental entities in manufacturing and packaging systems is relevant to understanding how these systems contribute to a drug product's total elemental impurity burden. To that end, a joint team from the Extractables and Leachables Safety Information Exchange (ELSIE) Consortium and the International Pharmaceutical Aerosol Consortium on Regulation and Science (IPAC-RS) has conducted a review of the available literature on elemental entities in pharmaceutically relevant polymers and the presence of these elemental entities in material extracts and/or drug products. This review article contains the information compiled from the available body of literature and considers two questions: (1) What elemental entities are present in the relevant polymers and materials and at what levels are they present? (2) To what extent are these elemental entities leached from these materials under conditions relevant to the manufacturing and storage/distribution of solution drug products? Conclusions drawn from the compiled data are as follows: (1) Elemental entities are present in the materials used to construct packaging and manufacturing systems as these materials either contain these elemental entities as additives or are exposed to elemental entities during their production. (2) Unless the elemental entities are parts of the materials themselves (for example, SiO2 in glass) or intentionally added to the materials (for example, metal stearates in polymers), their incidental amounts in the materials are generally low. (3) When elemental entities are present in materials and systems, generally only a very small fraction of the total available amount of the entity can be leached under conditions that are relevant to packaged drug products. Thus, while sources of certain elemental impurities may be ubiquitous in the natural environment, they are not ubiquitous in materials used in pharmaceutical packaging and manufacturing systems and when they are present, they are not extensively leached under relevant conditions. The information summarized here can be utilized to aid the elemental impurity risk assessment process by providing the identities of commonly reported elements and data to support probability estimates of those becoming elemental impurities in the drug product. Furthermore, recommendations are made related to establishing elements of potential product impact for individual materials. Extraneous impurities in drug products provide no therapeutic benefit and thus should be known and controlled. Elemental impurities can arise from a number of sources and by a number of means, including the leaching of elemental entities from drug product packaging and manufacturing systems. To understand the extent to which materials used in packaging systems contain elemental entities and the extent to which those entities leach into drug products to become elemental impurities, the Extractables and Leachables Safety Information Exchange (ELSIE) and International Pharmaceutical Aerosol Consortium on Regulation and Science (IPAC-RS) Consortia have jointly performed a literature review on this subject. Using the compiled information, it was concluded that while packaging materials may contain elemental entities, unless those entities are intentional parts of the materials, the amounts of those elemental entities are generally low. Furthermore, generally only a very small fraction of the total available amount of the entity can be leached under conditions that are relevant to packaged drug products. Thus, risk assessment of sources of elemental impurities in drug products that may be related to materials used in pharmaceutical packaging and manufacturing systems can utilize the information and recommendations presented here.

To develop and justify a Risk Evaluation Matrix for estimating the safety risk associated with extractables from plastic materials used in pharmaceutical applications and to apply that matrix to approximately 510 extractables to assess the risk that they would accumulate in drug products at levels sufficiently high to affect patient safety. The Risk Evaluation Matrix considers toxicological, availability and solubility characteristics of extractables. Safety Risk categories were established based on certain scaled values for these characteristics, Total Risk Scores were calculated for each extractable and the extractables were categorized with respect to their safety risk based on these calculations. The Total Risk Scores were normally distributed around a value of 20 to 23, corresponding to safety risk categories of moderate and intermediate risk. The range in Risk Scores defined by the mean ± one standard deviation encompassed the entire region of moderate and intermediate risk. Approximately 15% of the extractables were categorized as lowest risk while 3% of the extractables were categorized as highest risk. Categorization of extractables could facilitate the selection of materials for use in pharmaceutical systems, the analytical testing of extracts and the selection of target extractables.

Demonstrating suitability for intended use is necessary to register packaging, delivery/administration, or manufacturing systems for pharmaceutical products. During their use, such systems may interact with the pharmaceutical product, potentially adding extraneous entities to those products. These extraneous entities, termed leachables, have the potential to affect the product's performance and/or safety. To establish the potential safety impact, drug products and their packaging, delivery, or manufacturing systems are tested for leachables or extractables, respectively. This generally involves testing a sample (either the extract or the drug product) by a means that produces a test method response and then correlating the test method response with the identity and concentration of the entity causing the response. Oftentimes, analytical tests produce responses that cannot readily establish the associated entity's identity. Entities associated with un-interpretable responses are termed unknowns. Scientifically justifiable thresholds are used to establish those individual unknowns that represent an acceptable patient safety risk and thus which do not require further identification and, conversely, those unknowns whose potential safety impact require that they be identified. Such thresholds are typically based on the statistical analysis of datasets containing toxicological information for more or less relevant compounds.

The release of extractables from multi‐layered plastic films such as those used in containers for liquid drug products has been investigated. Targeted extractables were chosen from the film's extractable profile, as elucidated by a controlled extraction study. The total available pool of targeted extractables was ascertained via exhaustive sequential extraction of the film and the film layer responsible for the target extractables was established. This information, along with the film's structure, was used to produce a mathematical migration model for each of these targets. The film was fashioned into pouches, filled with a simulating solvent and the release of the targeted extractables to the pouches' contents was measured. The measured and modeled concentrations were found to be very similar, establishing the model's ability to effectively mimic the experimental system. This result suggests that mathematical modeling, which is widely used in the food industry to assess the safety of food packaging, may be applicable to packaged pharmaceutical products. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41223.

Use of pre-filled syringes as both a packaging and delivery system for pharmaceutical drug products is accelerating. Pre-filled syringes must meet the quality and suitability for use requirements for both systems, including compatibility with the drug product. Relevant incompatibilities between pre-filled syringes and drug products include the safety of syringe-based leachables that accumulate in drug products and the ability of leachables to interact with the drug product's ingredients as such interactions can affect safety, efficacy, stability and physical viability. Relevant suitability considerations for pre-filled syringes are discussed herein and specific examples of suitability for use issues for pre-filled syringes are cited, focusing on extractables associated with pre-filled syringes and leachables derived from such syringes. Aspects considered include the toxicological impact of leachables, their ability to alter the efficacy of drug products and to produce other undesirable outcomes such as aggregation and immunogenic responses. Materials used in pre-filled syringes and the conditions of use minimize the traditional safety risk associated with leachables. However, drug products that use pre-filled syringes are prone to non-traditional interactions such as disruption of protein conformation, leading to potential efficacy, safety and quality issues. In order to qualify pre-filled syringes for use, the traditional approach of measuring extractables and leachables and inferring their effect must be augmented by rigorous compatibility testing. Research into the fundamental relationship between leachables and drug substances will be necessary so the more time- and cost-efficient 'measure and infer' approach can be widely implemented.