Close

Scientists Find A Possible Antiviral Treatment For Monkeypox

Note* - All images used are for editorial and illustrative purposes only and may not originate from the original news provider or associated company.

Related stories

Managing Quality and Regulatory Risks in Pharmaceutical Technology Transfer

Technology transfer moves more than manufacturing instructions. It moves process knowledge, supplier dependencies, labeling requirements, packaging specifications, and the evidence needed to demonstrate control. For medical device manufacturers, including those supporting drug-device combination products, these interfaces can become recurring sources of compliance gaps during site transitions, acquisitions, and remediation. The central problem is often not a missing procedure. It is a quality system that allows connected activities to change independently. A label revision may be approved while packaging artwork, supplier instructions, or production-system data still reflect an obsolete version. Staying inspection-ready requires manufacturers to manage these dependencies as one controlled system. Why Compliance Gaps Keep Recurring Findings are treated as documentation defects Revising a procedure can resolve an immediate discrepancy without changing the behavior that caused it. If unclear decision rights, weak escalation, or ineffective training remain, the same failure may surface elsewhere. Corrective and preventive action should distinguish the observed finding from its underlying cause and establish how effectiveness will be demonstrated. Ownership is divided across connected functions Quality, Regulatory Affairs, labeling, packaging engineering, operations, suppliers, and digital-system owners often maintain separate workflows. Each team may complete its assigned task while an interface remains uncontrolled. For example, changing an instruction for use can affect packaging configuration, translations, technical documentation, inventory disposition, and release controls. Transitions expose unresolved weaknesses Acquisitions and site transfers can introduce conflicting procedures, incomplete knowledge transfer, or different assumptions about validated processes. Regulatory changes add further demands. When these events coincide with CAPA or change-control backlogs, teams may prioritize administrative closure over risk reduction. Without a coordinated impact assessment, local fixes can create new gaps downstream. Establish the Regulatory Baseline Inspection readiness starts with knowing which requirements apply to the product, activity, and market. Pharmaceutical, device, and combination-product obligations are not interchangeable; transfer planning should identify the applicable requirements rather than assume one quality framework covers every operation. According to FDA’s Quality Management System Regulation overview and FAQs, the QMSR became effective on February 2, 2026, incorporates ISO 13485:2016 by reference, and introduced the updated device inspection process under Compliance Program 7382.850. ISO 13485 certification does not exempt a manufacturer from FDA inspection or guarantee compliance with FDA requirements. For devices marketed in the European Union, Regulation (EU) 2017/745, Annex I, Section 23, provides the primary requirements for information supplied with devices, including labels and instructions for use. Teams should assess the applicable provisions alongside relevant language, product-specific, and market requirements. A labeling review should therefore evaluate required content and consistency with the device’s intended purpose and supporting documentation—not merely artwork accuracy. How to Identify the Real Gaps Begin with a cross-functional assessment that follows actual product and information flows. Select representative transfers, label changes, supplier changes, and CAPAs, then trace each from initiation through implementation and effectiveness review. Map dependencies: Identify affected specifications, suppliers, packaging components, systems, validation activities, and training. Compare records with practice: Check whether approved procedures match what operators and reviewers actually do. Test traceability: Follow a requirement through technical documentation, labeling, production instructions, and release evidence. Examine recurrence: Look for repeated deviations, reopened actions, overdue changes, and findings shared across sites. Assess capacity: Determine whether qualified owners have enough time and authority to complete corrective work. Prioritize gaps by potential patient or user harm, regulatory impact, likelihood of recurrence, and detectability. Document the rationale; an old overdue item is not automatically more important than a newly identified high-risk weakness. Align Quality, Labeling, Packaging, and Change Control Create a coordinated remediation plan with one accountable owner for each action, named contributors, acceptance criteria, and required evidence. Separate immediate containment from systemic correction. Containment might prevent obsolete labels from being issued; correction might redesign approval and implementation controls so obsolete versions cannot return. Use change control as the integration point. Before approval, evaluate effects on regulatory submissions or notifications, technical documentation, supplier controls, packaging performance, validation, electronic master data, inventory, and training. Record both identified impacts and justified decisions that particular activities are unaffected. During technology transfer, define readiness gates before production or release responsibilities move. These should address the transfer of process knowledge, acceptance criteria, receiving-site capability, required qualification or validation, approved documents, and personnel competence. The appropriate evidence depends on the product and process; a generic checklist cannot replace a documented assessment. Finally, verify implementation where the work happens. Confirm that current instructions are available, suppliers received approved requirements, systems contain correct versions, and affected personnel can perform their tasks. A signed approval is not evidence that every downstream change took effect. Mistakes That Undermine Inspection Readiness Closing CAPAs on task completion alone: Effectiveness checks should test whether the underlying failure has been controlled. Updating labels in isolation: Assess packaging, supplier, system, documentation, and inventory consequences. Counting closures instead of evidence: Dashboards need defensible records behind their status indicators. ...

State of API & Peptide CDMO Capacity

Pharmaceutical companies planning peptide or complex small-molecule launches are...

What Goes Into Synthetic Urine? The Chemistry Behind Replicating a Biological Fluid

Synthetic urine sounds simple until you look closely at...
- Advertisement -

Scientists have discovered a viable antiviral therapy for monkeypox, albeit the illness remains a considerably less serious threat than COVID, according to the researchers. As per new research on historical outbreaks of monkeypox in the UK, a patient seemed to have fewer symptoms after being medicated with one of two antivirals meant for smallpox. Seven people were treated for the virus between 2018 and 2022, according to the report released in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. It occurs as the new monkeypox spread has grown to 71 confirmed cases in the United Kingdom and 85 cases in eight European nations. Researchers acknowledged their study only looked at a limited group of people and that more research into antiviral therapy was needed.

Monkeypox was discovered in the patients’ throats and blood samples, according to the findings. Five of the patients in the study were kept in isolation for more thaon 3 weeks—up to 39 days—after receiving sustained positive PCR test findings.

However, the authors point out that this does not necessarily entail an airborne infection on the same scale as COVID. The techniques that were employed were PCR tests, which did not detect infectivity as well. In all circumstances, it’s been with extremely close contact in households, with children and parents having actual touch with one another rather than the necessity of being at a distance, one of the report’s authors, Dr. David Porter, stated.

In humans, there are presently no licenced treatments for monkeypox. Brincidofovir and Tecovirimat, which have been approved in the United States for the therapy of smallpox in preparation for a potential bioterrorism attack, were the only medications discovered in the study.

Three of the patients studied were given the antiviral Brincidofovir, which was shown to be ineffective, and one patient was given Tecovirimat for two weeks, which resulted in a shorter illness. Six weeks after being discharged from the hospital, one patient experienced a minor relapse. Four of the patients received treatment for monkeypox in specialised units in England between 2018 and 2019. Three of the cases were traced to West Africa, while the fourth case was discovered in a virus-exposed healthcare worker. In 2021, three more instances of monkeypox were detected in a family travelling from Nigeria, according to the study. One of these incidents involved a youngster.

In terms of their distribution, researchers found that the instances evaluated during 2018 and 2021 are not “distinguishable” from those now being identified.

Even in the high-income setting of the UK, the illness courses of the patients reported on were tough and resource-intensive to manage, the paper stated. Monkeypox infections will continue to happen in west and central Africa, and healthcare personnel all over the world must be on the lookout for monkeypox in travellers who have fever and rashes. The findings in this short series point to the need for more antiviral research to address this neglected tropical disease. Researchers warned against equating the latest monkeypox outbreak to COVID at a briefing conducted by the Science Media Centre on May 24th, 2022.

COVID, as an emerging infection, is significantly more critical for society than the monkey pox, said Dr. Jake Dunning, a consultant in infectious diseases and high-consequence infectious diseases at the Royal Free Hospital. He believes one must be careful not to confuse the two, particularly in terms of pandemic risk and transmission. In that regard, they are two quite different beasts. So he does not want people to believe that simply because they had a COVID pandemic, any new emerging illness will generate a pandemic as well.

Unlike COVID, monkeypox is a “DNA virus,” which does not change rapidly, thus the current outbreak is unlikely to constitute a “sudden shift” in the virus’s behaviour, as per honorary research fellow at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Specialty Trainee in Infectious Diseases’ Dr Hugh Adler,

It is far more probable either a random event or human behaviour, in particular that traveling is opening up more extensively again, he noted. However, based on their preliminary genetic information, there is no signal, and based on what people knows about monkeypox biology, one would not expect it to alter that quickly.

World Pharma Today brings together the global pharmaceutical industry — from R&D leaders and regulatory affairs professionals to manufacturers and distribution executives — through trusted editorial, market intelligence, and digital engagement.

Our 2026 Media Pack offers integrated solutions to reach your audience:

  • Magazine & Digital Editions Showcase your brand within premium pharmaceutical industry coverage read by executives and decision - makers worldwide.
  • Industry Insights & Reports Align with data - driven analysis, trend reports, and regional roundups across the global pharmaceutical and life sciences value chain.
  • Brand Authority & Credibility Position your company as a thought leader through expert commentary, interviews, and special features.

Subscribe

- Never miss a story with notifications

- Gain full access to our premium content

- Browse free from any location or device.

Media Packs

Expand Your Reach With Our Customized Solutions Empowering Your Campaigns To Maximize Your Reach & Drive Real Results!

– Access the Media Pack Now

– Book a Conference Call

– Leave Message for Us to Get Back

Latest stories

Related stories

Managing Quality and Regulatory Risks in Pharmaceutical Technology Transfer

Technology transfer moves more than manufacturing instructions. It moves process knowledge, supplier dependencies, labeling requirements, packaging specifications, and the evidence needed to demonstrate control. For medical device manufacturers, including those supporting drug-device combination products, these interfaces can become recurring sources of compliance gaps during site transitions, acquisitions, and remediation. The central problem is often not a missing procedure. It is a quality system that allows connected activities to change independently. A label revision may be approved while packaging artwork, supplier instructions, or production-system data still reflect an obsolete version. Staying inspection-ready requires manufacturers to manage these dependencies as one controlled system. Why Compliance Gaps Keep Recurring Findings are treated as documentation defects Revising a procedure can resolve an immediate discrepancy without changing the behavior that caused it. If unclear decision rights, weak escalation, or ineffective training remain, the same failure may surface elsewhere. Corrective and preventive action should distinguish the observed finding from its underlying cause and establish how effectiveness will be demonstrated. Ownership is divided across connected functions Quality, Regulatory Affairs, labeling, packaging engineering, operations, suppliers, and digital-system owners often maintain separate workflows. Each team may complete its assigned task while an interface remains uncontrolled. For example, changing an instruction for use can affect packaging configuration, translations, technical documentation, inventory disposition, and release controls. Transitions expose unresolved weaknesses Acquisitions and site transfers can introduce conflicting procedures, incomplete knowledge transfer, or different assumptions about validated processes. Regulatory changes add further demands. When these events coincide with CAPA or change-control backlogs, teams may prioritize administrative closure over risk reduction. Without a coordinated impact assessment, local fixes can create new gaps downstream. Establish the Regulatory Baseline Inspection readiness starts with knowing which requirements apply to the product, activity, and market. Pharmaceutical, device, and combination-product obligations are not interchangeable; transfer planning should identify the applicable requirements rather than assume one quality framework covers every operation. According to FDA’s Quality Management System Regulation overview and FAQs, the QMSR became effective on February 2, 2026, incorporates ISO 13485:2016 by reference, and introduced the updated device inspection process under Compliance Program 7382.850. ISO 13485 certification does not exempt a manufacturer from FDA inspection or guarantee compliance with FDA requirements. For devices marketed in the European Union, Regulation (EU) 2017/745, Annex I, Section 23, provides the primary requirements for information supplied with devices, including labels and instructions for use. Teams should assess the applicable provisions alongside relevant language, product-specific, and market requirements. A labeling review should therefore evaluate required content and consistency with the device’s intended purpose and supporting documentation—not merely artwork accuracy. How to Identify the Real Gaps Begin with a cross-functional assessment that follows actual product and information flows. Select representative transfers, label changes, supplier changes, and CAPAs, then trace each from initiation through implementation and effectiveness review. Map dependencies: Identify affected specifications, suppliers, packaging components, systems, validation activities, and training. Compare records with practice: Check whether approved procedures match what operators and reviewers actually do. Test traceability: Follow a requirement through technical documentation, labeling, production instructions, and release evidence. Examine recurrence: Look for repeated deviations, reopened actions, overdue changes, and findings shared across sites. Assess capacity: Determine whether qualified owners have enough time and authority to complete corrective work. Prioritize gaps by potential patient or user harm, regulatory impact, likelihood of recurrence, and detectability. Document the rationale; an old overdue item is not automatically more important than a newly identified high-risk weakness. Align Quality, Labeling, Packaging, and Change Control Create a coordinated remediation plan with one accountable owner for each action, named contributors, acceptance criteria, and required evidence. Separate immediate containment from systemic correction. Containment might prevent obsolete labels from being issued; correction might redesign approval and implementation controls so obsolete versions cannot return. Use change control as the integration point. Before approval, evaluate effects on regulatory submissions or notifications, technical documentation, supplier controls, packaging performance, validation, electronic master data, inventory, and training. Record both identified impacts and justified decisions that particular activities are unaffected. During technology transfer, define readiness gates before production or release responsibilities move. These should address the transfer of process knowledge, acceptance criteria, receiving-site capability, required qualification or validation, approved documents, and personnel competence. The appropriate evidence depends on the product and process; a generic checklist cannot replace a documented assessment. Finally, verify implementation where the work happens. Confirm that current instructions are available, suppliers received approved requirements, systems contain correct versions, and affected personnel can perform their tasks. A signed approval is not evidence that every downstream change took effect. Mistakes That Undermine Inspection Readiness Closing CAPAs on task completion alone: Effectiveness checks should test whether the underlying failure has been controlled. Updating labels in isolation: Assess packaging, supplier, system, documentation, and inventory consequences. Counting closures instead of evidence: Dashboards need defensible records behind their status indicators. ...

State of API & Peptide CDMO Capacity

Pharmaceutical companies planning peptide or complex small-molecule launches are...

What Goes Into Synthetic Urine? The Chemistry Behind Replicating a Biological Fluid

Synthetic urine sounds simple until you look closely at...

Danaher Prepares to Introduce Advanced AI-Powered Laboratory

In a significant step for pharmaceutical research, Danaher has...

Subscribe

- Never miss a story with notifications

- Gain full access to our premium content

- Browse free from any location or device.

Media Packs

Expand Your Reach With Our Customized Solutions Empowering Your Campaigns To Maximize Your Reach & Drive Real Results!

– Access theMedia Pack Now

– Book a Conference Call

– Leave Message for Us to Get Back

Translate »