Within the EU shipment of unapproved API is not be acceptable under EU law. For shipments outside of the EU the local laws would have to be checked. It would be necessary to check what is stated in the API producer’s SOP with reference to shipping unapproved material and whether that contravened any regulatory laws. The quality agreement between the API producer, the contract manufacturer and the MA holder should also be looked at to see if there is any reference to the movement of unapproved material being acceptable. It is not good practice to ship unapproved materials and as such this should have been picked up by the quality person releasing the API. Further, a deviation should have been raised and a full investigation carried out as to the root-cause. In addition the contract manufacturer should have quarantined this material on receipt and also raised a deviation to find out what went wrong. If this was a one-off incident and not a fundamental break down of the API’s manufacturers and/or the contract manufacturers Quality System, then as long as the API was formally approved, you should reference the deviation report and as long as everything else was in order, certify the final drug product. However, if this incident was part of a systematic failure of the Quality System would recommend not to certify the drug product as the potential for other GMP non-conformances would be too great. The follow-up to the deviation could involve an audit of the API producer initiated by the MA holder.
