Serious about Making Pharmaceuticals?

Our Directors Richard Andrews and Darren Jones will be joining GMP Healthcare Ltd on stand 220 at this year’s Making Pharmaceuticals Conference in Coventry on the 25th – 26th April 2023.

As the largest Pharmaceutical Event in the UK, it covers everything from Processing, Medical Devices, Regulatory, Clinical Testing, Research & Development, Operational Excellence, Pharmaceutical Quality, Serialisation, Clinical Trial Testing, Ingredients / Excipients, Microbiology, Pharmaceutical Engineering, Packaging & Labelling, New Technologies & Data Management.

We will be on hand to discuss any challenges you are facing and offering our expertise to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as other associated healthcare clients, to achieve and maintain regulatory compliance and excellent pharmaceutical quality systems, to best industry standards.

Registrations are open for your complimentary Exhibition & Conference passes. It will be great to catch up with clients and colleagues old and new. If you are attending, please come along and say hello!

Top Tips for Implementing Effective Knowledge Management Practices

Article By Michelle Yeomans Operations Manager for EPiC Auditors Limited

At the EPiC Autumn Compliance Seminar, I delivered a presentation outlining the direction of travel in demonstrating compliance  (Session 1. GMP Seminar 10th November 2022 9am to 10am) which highlighted how global regulators are looking at new ways to be agile and make best use of resources and reduce regulatory complexity. The aim is to benefit patients by supporting access to quality medicines by adopting the same requirements for the formats and data expectations in regulatory submissions and applying the same standards in regulatory review, assessment, and inspection to support reliance. Such approaches will require companies to demonstrate effective use of data, knowledge management and to implement a culture of continuous improvement throughout the product lifecycle.  

How organisations create, manage, and use knowledge is a key component of an effective Pharmaceutical Quality System (PQS) as defined by ICH Q10. The need to minimise knowledge loss is a primary concern, as loss of knowledge can lead to poor risk-based decision making and inefficiencies in trying to retrieve past knowledge or having to  “reinvent the wheel” to replace lost knowledge.

Hardly a week goes by without seeing a post on LinkedIn from a network connection who is “happy to share” that they are starting a new position. Whilst this is exciting for the individual to be embarking on a new chapter in their career, what can organisations do to minimise the risk of specialist knowledge walking out of the door with them?

Tips for implementing effective knowledge management practices:

1. It’s important to recognise that it is the people and not the data that underpin an organisations’ knowledge base. Compile and maintain a list or matrix of subject matter experts (SMEs) to increase awareness of “go to” people and encourage communication, networking and sharing of past and current knowledge.
2. Don’t wait until someone is working their notice to try to capture all that they know, as there won’t be enough time to transfer valuable knowledge to colleagues. Think about how you can capture and manage knowledge as a continuous improvement activity e.g., capturing and implementing lessons learned and after-action reviews.
3. Advances in technology to support remote collaborative working accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic and has increased the availability and accessibility of creative tools to capture and share information. Explore what options are available with IT and Data Management colleagues to make use of available tools to help build and improve your knowledge management systems.
4. Asking someone to write down everything they know about a particular product, process, system, operation is a daunting task. People may not be aware of the knowledge they possess or how valuable it is to others. Indecision on what to include could result in a lot of the implicit knowledge remaining in people’s heads and at risk of being lost. As implicit knowledge is often difficult to articulate, transfer of knowledge can be achieved more effectively by encouraging regular interaction with colleagues e.g., networking forums, and sharing practical experiences through coaching and mentoring opportunities.  
5. For knowledge to be usable, it needs to be captured in an effective manner. Consider using a variety of formats to encourage information sharing and capturing knowledge e.g., video recordings, voice notes, whiteboards, story boards etc. Look at how the resulting output could be adopted into workflows, SOPs, Work Instructions, etc. as continuous improvement helping to retain current knowledge and support the development of new knowledge.

The above practical tips are intended to help minimise the risk of knowledge loss and support compliance with the EU GMP requirement to implement quality improvements appropriate to the current level of process and products knowledge (EU GMP Chapter 1, 1.4 (xi)) and ICH Q10 principles.

If you need our help and support, then please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Telephone: +44 (0)1244 980544 or email us at 

EPIC Auditors are delighted to welcome Tony Orme to the team as an independent consultant.

Tony has over 32 years’ experience at the MHRA working in various areas of regulation of medicinal product supply chains. As a former MHRA GDP Inspector, with 22 years within the MHRA GDP Inspectorate team where he reached Expert Inspector level, he undertook the most high profile and complex inspections across the UK.

Tony was the GDP EU Exit Lead and formulated the post Brexit guidance for import from listed countries, the RPi role and supply to Northern Ireland. He led on the implementation of the Falsified Medicines Directive for distributors in the UK and the continued use of the Medicines Verification system in Northern Ireland.

During his career at the MHRA Tony was involved in the development of most UK GDP policies, including the GDP risk based inspection strategy and supply chain security. He was GDP lead for IAG cases for many years and is ideally placed to help distributors ensure their operations are compliant or help respond to failures and to develop and implement effective remedial actions.

With his comprehensive portfolio of experience, Tony is an excellent addition to the EPIC team.

I have known and worked with Tony for over 20 years and am delighted that he has joined the EPiC team of Experts as an independent consultant. His knowledge and experience of GDP and supply chain security is second to none.

As announced last week at the MHRA Symposium 2023 the GDP Inspectorate are moving to a licence based inspection model, whereby the overall compliance of all sites named on a WDA(H) will be determined from the inspection outcomes of a selected sample of the sites. In implementing this approach, the GDP Inspectorate will be making greater use of unannounced and short notice inspections. Ensuring all sites are in a constant state of inspection readiness is therefore now even more important.

Through EPiC, Tony and the other former MHRA GDP Inspectors, who also work as independent consultants for us, can conduct regular and routine mock inspections and audits to help you maintain the required level of compliance and ultimately be inspection ready.

Richard Andrew, EPiC Director & Senior Consultant

Pharmaceutical Industry Experts

Auditors used by EPIC are former Regulatory Inspectors, typically ex MHRA Inspectors. All auditors have extensive industry experience and many years of experience auditing and inspecting within the pharmaceutical industry.

To read the bio and full CV for Tony Orme and our other experts’ visit Meet Our Experts

If you need our help and support then please contact us on +44 (0)1244 980544 or e mail us at

Lewis Corbett joins EPiC as Business Manager & Senior Consultant

EPIC Auditors are delighted to announce that Lewis Corbett has joined EPiC Auditors as Business Manager and Senior Consultant.

Lewis has over 25 years experience of pharmaceutical manufacture and distribution gained from working within the industry and for the GMP Inspectorate of the UK medicines regulator (MHRA) as a Senior GMP Inspector and Head of GMP Team 1. During his 5 years at the MHRA Lewis had responsibility for the licensing and inspection of pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors both in the UK and overseas, managing and leading a team of GMP Inspectors, implementing changes to regulations and ways of working as a result of EU Exit, and supporting elements of the agency’s Covid-19 pandemic response. 

Prior to joining the MHRA Inspectorate Lewis spent 22 years working in the pharmaceutical industry in various QC, QA and management roles, and as a Qualified Person for a range of active pharmaceutical ingredients and non-sterile product dosage forms.

Lewis was trained and accredited by the MHRA to inspect:

• API manufacturers, importers and distributors  
• Importation of medicinal products 
• Non-Sterile manufacturing sites   
• Contract laboratories   
• Excipient manufacturers  
• Storage and distribution sites

He has expertise in MHRA and EU Inspection preparation and remediation, Pharmaceutical Quality Management Systems, and training in EU GMP Regulatory requirements and is eligible to act as an EU Qualified Person.

With his wide portfolio of experience, Lewis is a great addition to the core EPiC team and with his help we are confident we can extend our GXP support across the medicinal product lifecycle and help all our clients to improve their GXP quality systems and regulatory compliance.

If you need our help and support then please contact us on +44 (0)1244 980544 or e mail us at 

EPiC Auditors Autumn Compliance Seminar: Thursday 10th November 2022

Here’s what our speakers have to say about the event;

“A condition of holding an MIA and WDA(H) is that the guidelines on GMP and GDP are complied with. Sustaining the required level of compliance is a must to ensure medicinal products of the right quality are manufactured and distributed and avoid regulatory action. My presentation on Future-proofing compliance will explore what licence holders can and should do to continually improve and not only fulfil but exceed this requirement.” 

Richard Andrews, EPiC Auditors Managing Director & Senior Consultant   

With the deadline for the implementation of Annex1 fast approaching, now is a great time to consider the implications for your sterile processes.  At the EPiC Autumn Compliance Seminar, I will roadmap those areas of the new Annex 1 that may result in many future sterility assurance deficiencies – a roadmap of the hotspots. This session will complement the session from Rick Parker of the MHRA, who will provide the latest MHRA thinking on Annex 1. A great opportunity to get ahead of the Annex 1 changes!

Darren Jones, EPiC Auditors Director & Senior Consultant

To find out more about the seminar and to book your tickets click on the link below: