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Controlling impurities during drug development improves product quality and minimizes safety risks to the patient. Recent regulatory guidance on genotoxic impurities (GTIs) state that identified GTIs are unusually toxic and require lower reporting, identification, and qualification limits than outlined in the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guideline “Impurities in New Drug Substances Q3A(R2).” [ICH Harmonized Tripartite Guideline: Impurities in New Drug Substances (Q3A)International Conference on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH)2006] Patient safety is always the underlying focus, but the overall impurity control strategy is also driven by appropriate “as low as reasonably practicable” (ALARP) procedures that include assessment of process capability and associated analytical techniques. In combination with ALARP, safe and appropriate GTI levels are currently identified using chronic toxicology-based limits calculated under the standard assumption of 70-years for exposure duration. This paper proposes a risk assessment approach for developing GTI limits based on shorter-term exposure durations by highlighting marketed anticancer compounds with limited dosing schedules (e.g., 2 years). These limits are generally higher than the defaulted threshold of toxicological concern (TTC of 1.5 μg/day) and can result in more easily developed and less complex analytical methods. The described approach does not compromise safety and can potentially speed life-saving medicines to patients.

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