Warning Letter of the Week: unorganized office edition

From a note from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to the owner and general Manager of Yibin Lihao Bio-technical Co., Ltd. in Sichuan, China: 

2. Failure to establish, document, and implement an effective system for managing quality that involves the active participation of management and appropriate manufacturing personnel. 

During the inspection, the investigator observed your firm did not adequately control critical documentation pertinent to the traceability of crude heparin manufactured at your facility. During the walkthrough on July 31, 2019, our investigator observed numerous records on the floor, desks, and cabinets of the Quality Assurance (QA) Office on the third floor of the office building. Some of these records included batch production records for heparin. 

During the inspection, one of your employees stated that these records were generated to support an application for government funding, but the crude heparin batches specified in the records had not actually been manufactured. However, later during the inspection, on August 2, 2019, your firm stated that all the records in the QA Office were in fact associated with genuine crude heparin batches. 

Additionally, even though your Crude Heparin Sodium Inventory and Distribution Record indicated your firm manufactured [redacted] batches of crude heparin (CU190601 to CU190730) from June 1, 2019, to July 30, 2019, your firm was only able to provide complete batch records for two batches, CU190728 and CU190730. 

Traceability of crude heparin is a critical part of managing quality. You must ensure that a complete contemporaneous record of each batch of drug manufactured is retained for CGMP purposes. Your system for managing quality is inadequate and calls into question the traceability of all drugs, including crude heparin. manufactured at your facility.

It's a good thing the FDA hasn't seen my desk...