Certification of a New Batch of the Industry Reference Standard for the Control of Specific Activity and Thermal Stability of Live Plague Vaccine

In accordance with the State Pharmacopoeia (SPh) requirements for live plague vaccine, a reference standard has to be used when testing the specific activity and thermal stability of plague vaccine commercial batches in order to assess the consistency and acceptability of the test results. Since there is no international reference standard for plague vaccine, the certification of a new batch of the industry reference standard (IRS) of live plague vaccine in terms of the above-mentioned quality parameters is an urgent challenge. Therefore, a certification programme for the industry reference standard was developed that establishes the design and scope of testing required to obtain statistically significant results. A candidate IRS was represented by a commercial batch of the product meeting the specification requirements for live plague vaccine. The certification parameters were: «Specific activity: microbial cell concentration», «Specific activity: live microbial cell percentage» and «Thermal stability». The article presents the results of the certification of a new batch of the live plague vaccine IRS, detailed evaluation of the candidate IRS in terms of: «Average weight and uniformity of weight», «Loss on drying», and statistical interpretation of the test results. It also summarises the results of the product testing in terms of «Specific activity: immunogenicity». The results of application of the previous batch of the live plague vaccine IRS (OSO 42-28-392-2013) and the results of monitoring the stability of its certification parameters demonstrated that the IRS shelf life could be extended by 6 months relative to the established period (from 2 to 2.5 years). All the certified and additional characteristics are reflected in the official documents for the scientific/technological product — live plague vaccine IRS, OSO 42-28-392-2017: passport, labelling and patient information leaflet.

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