A lot has been said about ISO 9001 in the pharmaceutical industry.  With pros and cons and comparisons to GMP made all the time.  This will be discussed more in a later article, but as a starter I have listed the clauses of ISO 9001 below.  Those in purple  text are requirements of ISO that are not specifially mentioned in EU GMP.  From this list you can see that there are a number of areas that ISO covers that are not covered by GMP.  Those familair with ICH 10 and the FDA Quality Systems GMP Guidance documents will see how ISO has obviously had an input into the design of these two quality documents.

Section 1 – Scope

Section 2 – Normative Reference

Section 3 – Terms and Definitions

Section 4 – Quality Management System

4.1 – General Requirements (Process Approach)

4.2 – Documentation Requirements

4.2.1 General

4.2.2 Quality Manual

4.2.3 Control of Documents

4.2.4 Control of Records

Section 5 – Management Responsibility

5.1 – Management Commitment

5.2 – Customer Focus

5.3 – Quality Policy

5.4 – Planning

5.4.1 Quality Objectives

5.4.2 Quality Management System planning

5.5 – Responsibility, authority and communication

5.5.1 Responsibility and authority

5.5.2 Management Representative

5.5.3 Internal Communication

5.6 – Management Review

5.6.1 General

5.6.2 Review Input

5.6.3 Review Output

Section 6 – Resource Management

6.1 – Provision of Resources

6.2 – Human Resources

6.2.1 General

6.2.2 Competence, awareness and training

6.3 – Infrastructure

6.4 – Work Environment

Section 7 – Product Realization

7.1 – Planning of Product Realisation

7.2 – Customer-related processes

7.2.1 Determination of requirements related to the product

7.2.2 Review of requirements related to the product

7.2.3 Customer Communication

7.3 – Design and Development

7.3.1 Design and Development Planning

7.3.2 Design and Development Inputs

7.3.3 Design and Development Outputs

7.3.4 Design and Development Review

7.3.5 Design and Development Verification

7.3.6 Design and Development Validation

7.3.7 Control of Design and Development changes

7.4 – Purchasing

7.4.1 Purchasing Process

7.4.2 Purchasing Information

7.4.3 Verification of Purchased Product

7.5 – Production and Service provision

7.5.1 Control of production and service provision

7.5.2 Validation of processes for production and service provision

7.5.3 Identification and Traceability

7.5.4 Customer Property

7.5.5 Preservation of Product

7.6 – Control of Monitoring and Measuring Equipment

Section 8 – Measurement, Analysis and Improvement

8.1 – General

8.2 – Monitoring and Measurement

8.2.1 Customer Satisfaction

8.2.2 Internal Audit

8.2.3 Monitoring and Measurement of processes

8.2.4 Monitoring and Measurement of product

8.3 – Control of nonconforming product

8.4 – Analysis of Data

8.5 – Improvement

8.5.1 Continual Improvement

8.5.2 Corrective Action

8.5.3 Preventive Action

Note – there is only passsing reference to Corrective and/ or Preventivie Actions in GMP and certainly no mention of CAPA’s.

From the above you will see that there are certainly some areas where ISO can be used to enhance a GMP based Quality System.

What are your thoughts on this?  Please make a comment.

For more information on Quality Management Systems visit our training course web-site www.inspiredpharma.com