Precompetitive Collaborations in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Process Safety Groups Work Together to Reduce Hazards, from R&D Laboratories to Manufacturing Facilities

Abstract

Process Safety scientists in the pharmaceutical industry are tasked with keeping the laboratories, manufacturing facilities, people, and environment safe from thermal runaway reactions. This group of highly trained chemists and engineers has forged an alliance stretching across company lines to help ensure the safety of the global pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. In this Commentary, we share our challenges, strategies, and opportunities for working together to ensure the safety of our respective companies and external vendors. We discuss our three platforms for collaborating and sharing ideas to help communicate the importance of pharmaceutical companies cooperating in a precompetitive space for the greater good.

The Risk Management Approach by Applying Hazardous Area Classification, Which Helps in Identifying the Critical Zones in a Pharmaceutical Industry

“…To prevent such type of pressure, build up we have only employed trained people to operate the various process equipment's as per the SOP. According to the Ayman et al (2021) insisted that the formation of global groups, which includes various chemist, engineers and process scientist will help the global pharmaceutical sector for the safer operations, the various advantages of sharing…”

Process Safety in the Pharmaceutical Industry─Part II: Process Safety Labs and Instruments Used in Process Safety Labs for Thermal Hazards

“…Finally, the authors’ desire is that this article will be used by the pharmaceutical companies and other institutions that handle chemicals including and not limited to CMOs, CROs, universities, and other chemical industries to evaluate their current tools and procedures used in PSL. This work joins our previous publication and other collaborative efforts in the pharmaceutical industry to drive improvement in common practices in process safety. However, the reader should be reminded that the tools/procedures discussed in this paper might not be the best practices and are subject to change, as they represent the current state of how surveyed companies conduct their hazard evaluation.…”