Student Manual
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STUDENT MANUAL Occupational Hygiene in the Pharmaceutical Industry Draft Version - September 2020 The draft training materials for this course are offered by the Occupational Hygiene Training Association and available free of charge though the OHTA website OHlearning.com. Copyright information This student manual is provided under the Creative Commons Attribution - NoDerivs licence agreement. It can only be reproduced in its entirety without change, unless with the prior written permission of OHTA. Occupational Hygiene Training Association, 5/6 Melbourne Business Court Millennium Way, Pride Park, Derby, DE24 8LZ Email: [email protected] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to sincerely acknowledge the dedication and hard work contributed toward authoring and reviewing this module and would like to express appreciation to the following individuals or organisations for their support or contribution. Angelie Kasman Lilly Steve Bailey GSK Adrian Hirst Hirst Consulting Nancy McClellan AbbVie/OHM Consulting Maharshi Mehta ISS Consulting Erica Joseph GSK Charlyn Reihman Safebridge Greg Erexson AbbVie Lisa Cardo GSK Donna Heidel Bureau Veritas/Amazon Russell Collins GSK Pam Davison Len Morris BOHS Lesley Burgess AstraZeneca John Farris Safebridge Bob Sussman Safebridge Chun-Yip Hon Ryerson University Jerald Ovesen NIOSH Jill Kauker Naval Health Amanda Scott CHOP Amy Snow GSK Jeff Dinyer Thermofisher Stephen Nowakowski Safebridge Barry Ballinger HPA Consulting Dale Iddon Eli Lilly Lesley Burgess AstraZeneca Steve Lewis GSK Michael West Pfizer Jose Pedro Dias Janssen Pharmaceutica (Johnson & Johnson) Walter Spieler F. Hoffmann LaRoche AG Martin Foerster F. Hoffmann LaRoche AG Bie Lambert Janssen Pharmaceutica (Johnson & Johnson) Michel Vangeel Janssen Pharmaceutica (Johnson & Johnson) Juergen Fleckenstein Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH Lena Fahlqvist Kozicic AstraZeneca Ulrich Billerbeck Merck KGaA Chris Field Napp Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited Jan Wren GSK R&D Deborah Simpson GSK R&D David Newton GSK Biologicals Simon Nunn Pfizer UK Marc Abromovitz Johnson & Johnson and Novartis *Affiliations are listed as at the time of contributing and may not be current 1 UNDERSTANDING THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY 1.1 Development of the Industry 1.1.1 Origins 1.1.2 The Story of Aspirin 1.1.3 The Development of Antibiotics 1.1.4 Rational Drug Design 1.1.5 The Growth of Regulation 1.1.6 Regulatory Regimes 1.2 Areas of the Business 1.2.1 Drug Discovery 1.2.2 Drug Development 1.2.3 Manufacturing 1.3 Commercial Pressures 1.3.1 The Blockbuster Model 1.3.2 The Generics Industry 1.3.3 Intellectual Property 1.3.4 Litigation and Liabilities 1.3.5 Commercial Responses 1.4 Present and Future Trends 1.4.1 Genetics and Personalised Medicines 1.4.2 Gene therapy 1.4.3 Epigenetics 1.4.4 Monoclonal Antibodies 1.5 Related industries 1.5.1 Biotechnology and Biopharmaceuticals 1.5.2 Vaccines 1.5.3 Medical devices 1.5.4 Other Related Industries Annex 1 Some Major Companies in the Pharmaceutical Industry Chapter 1: Understanding the Pharmaceutical Industry 1 1.1 Development of the Industry An awareness of how pharmaceuticals and the pharmaceutical industry have evolved makes it easier to understand the modern industry: its manufacturing methods, the strict regulatory environment, the health issues affecting workers, and the social and ethical issues faced today. Professional hygienists need such knowledge in order to be credible with their technical and managerial colleagues in industry. It is not necessary for students to remember all the details of the historical events mentioned below, or to know about all the individual pharmaceuticals discussed, but knowledge of the specific pharmaceuticals that your company works with will prove very useful. Key learning points for hygienists are summarised at the end of each section. 1.1.1 Origins The pharmaceutical industry is concerned with the manufacture of drugs. A drug can be defined as “any chemical substance, synthetic or natural, of known or unknown composition, which is used as a medication to prevent or cure a disease.” There are many types of drugs. They can be categorised into around 15 classes by site of primary action (gastro-intestinal system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, etc.) then subdivided into around 100 further subgroups by drug type - antacids, laxatives, anticoagulants, analgesics, cytotoxics to name but a few. Up until the industrial revolution the pharmaceutical industry only existed in the form of apothecaries and pharmacies that offered traditional remedies. It was not until the 1800s that an industry involving large scale manufacture started to emerge. 1827 – Heinrich Emanuel Merck worked in the family pharmacy in Darmstadt, Germany and started to isolate all the known alkaloids and sold them to other chemists and physicians. 1842 – Thomas Beecham started selling “Beecham’s Pills”, a laxative tablet, building up a network of sales throughout the north of England and by 1859 opening the world’s first pharmaceutical factory. 1849 – In the USA Pfizer is founded, initially making Sanonin, an antiparasitic. During the American Civil War they expanded to meet the demand for painkillers, preservatives and disinfectants. 1858 - Edward Robinson Squibb, set up a laboratory supplying the union armies in the civil war. Despite being badly burned by an ether explosion and the laboratory being burned a further two times, by 1883 the company was manufacturing 324 products and selling them around the world. 1876 - Colonel Eli Lilly a pharmacist and veteran of the American Civil War began his medical wholesale company. Lilly pioneered new methods in the industry, being one of the first to focus on R&D as well as manufacturing. 1888 - As a result of the demand for more exact dosing and sophistication of drug formulation, the physician and pharmacist Dr. Wallace C. Abbott, using the active part of a medicinal plant, known Chapter 1: Understanding the Pharmaceutical Industry 2 as the "alkaloid," formed tiny pills called "dosimetric granules," which provided more accurate and effective dosing for his patients than other treatments available at the time. From these modest origins inside a physician’s residence, was born Abbott which is now AbbVie Inc. During the latter half of the 19th Century Switzerland also developed a pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Companies set up to manufacture dyestuffs realized that their products had antiseptic qualities and started to market them as pharmaceuticals. A lack of patent laws in the country allowed companies to manufacture and sell products invented by other companies. Novartis, Roche and the Basel hub of the pharmaceutical industry all have their roots in this boom. Key learning points: o The first pharmaceutical companies grew out of traditional pharmacies. o Early pharmaceuticals were based on natural remedies. o There was no clear dividing line between prescription medicines and other products. th o Modern pharmaceutical manufacturing has its origins in the fine chemicals industry of the 19 century. o Even today, the geographic distribution of the major companies reflects this history. 1.1.2 The Story of Aspirin Aspirin was perhaps the first synthetic pharmaceutical and remains the one of the most widely taken drugs in the world. The story of its development and subsequent use illustrates several principles that have come to typify the pharmaceutical industry. Ancient Sumerian and Egyptian texts recommended willow bark for various complaints. Greek, Roman and Islamic medical authors noted its power to reduce pain and relieve fevers. However, its tendency to cause inflammation and occasionally bleeding of the stomach lining considerably diminished its utility. In 1828 the German chemist Joseph Buchner isolated the active ingredient, a yellowish, bitter tasting substance that he called salicin (salix being the Latin for willow). Two years later Johann Pagenstecher, a Swiss apothecary, extracted the same material from the meadowsweet plant, whose botanical name spirea later suggested the brand name aspirin. In 1838 Raffaele Pirea succeeded in converting salicin to salicylic acid. This compound proved to be a more useful remedy, but unfortunately it irritated the stomachs of some patients. In 1853, the French chemist Charles Gerhardt prepared its acetyl ester, which had similar analgesic, anti- inflammatory and fever-reducing properties to salicylic acid but was less harmful to the stomach. The ester was not hydrolysed until it reached the alkaline environment of the small intestine. Bayer, a dyestuffs company established in 1863, developed a new industrial synthesis for acetyl salicylic acid and commercialised it as aspirin in 1899. Early synthetic drugs were tested haphazardly and often failed to fulfil all the marketing claims made but Bayer took a more systematic approach. Chapter 1: Understanding the Pharmaceutical Industry 3 Both commercial and medical factors contributed to the drug’s success. Aggressive advertising hammered aspirin’s reassuringly non-technical name into the public consciousness, while astute lawyers defended its trademark status in every important marketplace. Taking a tablet to relieve distress quickly became an integral part of western culture. The national rivalries and conflicts that characterised this period also had their impact on the developing industry. Bayer had the aspirin trademark and its US assets seized during World War I, whilst “American” Merck (now Merck & Co. in the US or Merck Sharp & Dohme [MSD] elsewhere) was compulsorily