WHO good manufacturing practices for pharmaceutical products: main principles

Introduction:

The first WHO draft text on good manufacturing practices (GMP) was prepared in 1967 by a group of consultants at the request of the Twentieth World Health Assembly (resolution WHA20.34). It was subsequently submitted to the Twenty first World Health Assembly under the title Draft requirements for good manufacturing practice in the manufacture and quality control of medicines and pharmaceutical specialities and was accepted.

The revised text was discussed by the WHO Expert Committee on Specifications for Pharmaceutical Preparations in 1968 and published as an annex to its twenty-second report. The text was then reproduced (with some revisions) in 1971 in the Supplement to the second edition of The International Pharmacopoeia.

In 1969, when the World Health Assembly recommended the first version of the WHO Certification Scheme on the quality of pharmaceutical products moving in international commerce in resolution WHA22.50, it accepted at the same time the GMP text as an integral part of the Scheme. Revised versions of both the Certification Scheme and the GMP text were adopted in 1975 by resolution WHA28.65. Since then, the Certification Scheme has been extended to include the certification of:

– veterinary products administered to food-producing animals;

– starting materials for use in dosage forms, when they are subject to control by legislation in both the exporting Member State and the importing Member State;

– information on safety and efficacy (resolution WHA41.18, 1988).

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Table of contents

Introduction

General considerations

Glossary

Quality management in the medicines industry: philosophy and

essential elements

1. Pharmaceutical quality system

2. Good manufacturing practices for pharmaceutical products

3. Sanitation and hygiene

4. Qualification and validation