Risk management methods and tools in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries

Understanding and implementing risk management methods and tools is crucial for the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries in view of the fact that errors in this area can lead to dangers for human life. Since any mistake in any chain of in this industry can lead to serious consequences; the FDA and other regulatory agencies have created a number of risk management methods and tools for these industries.
A few commonly used risk management methodsIn the pharmaceutical and life sciences area, a few commonly used risk management methods and tools for organizing data and using these to help in decision-making include the following:

• Flowcharts
• Checklists or check sheets
• Mapping of the process
• Fish bone diagram or Ishikawa diagram.

A few popular risk management methods and toolsIn the field of pharmaceuticals and life sciences, these can be said to be some of the more popularly used risk management methods and tools:
Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA)FMEA is a popular one among the risk management methods and tools mainly because it provides a methodology for assessing a potential failure mode for the process that goes into the manufacturing of the pharma or life sciences product and helps to analyze their possible impact on the product’s ability to perform to its required standard.
Identification and establishment of failure modes are taken as the basis for using risk reduction techniques for eliminating, containing, reducing or controlling the possible failures. Since FMEA depends on a deep understanding of the product and the process; its main steps include dissembling complex processes into simpler and comprehensible ones. For this reason, FMEA is considered a potent risk management method and tool.
Failure, Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)Extending the concept of FMEA a little farther, the Failure, Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) takes into account the added feature of the extent of gravity of the consequences of a fault or failure, along with the possibility of their occurrence, as well as the chance of their detection. While this is the slight extension that the FMECA brings to FMEA; it is similar to it in other respects, namely:
FMECA too, like FMEA, uses identification and establishment of the process specification to identify risks and failures
FMECA too uses the method of breaking down difficult processes to easier ones to enable better understanding of the failures and risks.
Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)Fault Tree Analysis is another of the risk management methods and tools. What this tool does is that it takes up a single fault at a time for analysis, but links the chains that cause the fault. This is why it gets its name, wherein the results of the analysis are represented in a shape of a tree, in which each level of fault is described with possibilities. A sharp and incisive analytical bent of mind is required to create the FTA.
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)HACCP is yet another important one among the risk management methods and tools. It takes a systematic and proactive approach in ensuring the following in a product:

It is considered a comprehensive risk management method and tool because it addresses all the issues relating to risk management methods and tools, applying scientific principles and methods for carrying out the following: Controlling of the risk or the negative outcomes of hazard, which could be due to any of these:

Supporting statistical tools
While all the risk management methods and tools described above are a snapshot of some of the major ones, a few supporting statistical tools, too, are used to engender quality risk management. These are some of them:

• Design of Experiments (DoE)
• Control charts
• Process capability analysis
• Pareto charts
• Histograms

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