The article analyses regulatory documents containing requirements for clinical (trials) documentation for orally inhaled products, including requirements for the demonstration of therapeutic equivalence of medicinal products for the treatment of bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults and children. The article summarises the main approaches to the assessment of inhalers equivalence. It also systematizes and describes dosage forms and inhalation devices, as well as the necessary stages of inhaler evaluation, looks into the methodology of conducting therapeutic equivalence studies with due regard to the therapeutic class of the drug, duration of its action and proposed nosology. The methodology includes requirements for the selection of the study population, study design and conditions, and recommendations for the selection of drug dose, study duration, primary and secondary efficacy and safety endpoints in the context of orally inhaled products.

The article reviews bioequivalence studies of Russian and foreign generic rosuvastatin preparations with the goal of harmonizing approaches to rosuvastatin bioequivalence studies in the Russian Federation. The article describes the current regulatory recommendations for and approaches to bioequivalence studies of generic drugs (and in particular of rosuvastatin preparations which are highly variable drugs) and gives recommendations on the design of rosuvastatin studies and evaluation of results.

The article summarises literature data on clinical management of HIV infection in pregnant women. It discusses the general principles of antiretroviral therapy for HIV-infected pregnant women and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection. It also describes pharmacokinetic properties of antiretroviral drugs for pregnant women. The article highlights issues concerning the effects of pregnancy on drug metabolism, patterns of drug interaction with both ABC and SCL drug transporters and associated clinical implications for antiretroviral therapy. The authors demonstrate the need for therapeutic drug monitoring of protease inhibitors in HIV-infected pregnant women.

The article discusses the design of development programmes for biosimilars used to treat patients with rheumatic diseases. It analyses the most popular definitions of biosimilars that are used in Russia and abroad, as well as regulatory approaches to establishing biosimilarity. The authors describe the design of confirmatory clinical trials and draw attention to the fact that equivalence margins need to be justified on both clinical and statistical grounds. The article substantiates the need to continuously improve the requirements for and approaches to the assessment of the programmes’ applicability to biosimilars evaluation.

The article summarizes the results of information analysis of bisoprolol fumarate synthesis methods which differ in the number of stages and in raw materials used, and are associated with the major identified impurities A, E and G, according to the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.). The authors performed a comparative analysis of the test procedures described in manufacturers’ quality standards, Ph. Eur. and United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) and analyzed the results of comparative experimental studies. It was shown that the implementation of the Ph. Eur. test method for related impurities according to «Bisoprolol fumarate» monograph demonstrated a high resolution between the main peak (of bisoprolol) and those of impurities A, E and G. Whereas the performance of the chromatographic system suitability testing according to the USP monograph failed to produce complete resolution between the peaks of bisoprolol and the impurities. The authors investigated the possibility of using a propranolol hydrochloride reference standard to assess the system resolution. The authors identified the conditions for determination of related substances in bisoprolol fumarate, selected chromatographic columns, proposed chromatographic system suitability criteria, including resolution between the peaks of bisoprolol and propranolol, and established limits for impurities.

The article summarises the results of experimental studies that compared liquid stationary phases used in GC for determination of triethylamine residual solvent in medicinal products. It discusses the results of comparative evaluation of triethylamine peak area RSDs, retention times and tailing factors for different phases and solvents. The authors give recommendations concerning selection of chromatographic columns for triethylamine determination.

The article describes validation of the procedure for determination of amino acids composition of glatiramer acetate by C-13 NMR spectroscopy. The procedure makes it possible to determine the molar ratio of amino acids present in glatiramer acetate with no need for a reference standard. The authors evaluated the accuracy, linearity, repeatability, intermediate precision and specificity of the validated procedure. The analysis of extraction factors for L-Glu, L-Ala, L-Tyr и L-Lys helped to calculate the systematic errors, standard deviations, confidence intervals, variation coefficients, confidence intervals, Fisher’s test and Student’s t-test for the results of amino acids molar ratio determination. It was shown that the obtained statistical data satisfy the acceptance criteria for validation parameters described in the national and foreign quality standards.

The article compares two methods of loss on drying determination in herbal medicinal products: drying using an infrared thermographic moisture analyzer and drying carried out in a drying cabinet. Data obtained with the moisture analyzer were shown to be sufficient for determination of loss on drying in herbal medicinal products of different morphological groups and were generally consistent with the data obtained by the traditional pharmacopoeial method - drying in a drying cabinet. The article demonstrates the feasibility of performing loss on drying test using an infrared thermographic moisture analyzer.

The article discusses the results of analysis a number of candidate molecules for TRPA₁ ion channel selective antagonists using molecular modeling methods of high throughput screening. The study determined their mechanisms of action and specific activity in cells with overexpression of TRPA₁ ion channel. It demonstrated antagonistic activity of test substances in relation to TRPA₁ ion channel based on the results of molecular screening of biologically active molecules and their comparison with the reference antagonist. The highest activity was demonstrated by the substance with the ZC02-0012 code which was regarded as the main candidate that could be recommended for use in further safety and selectivity studies using in vitro tests and subsequent in vivo experiments aimed at determining its activity and safety in relation to living systems.

The article discusses the results of an opinion poll among healthcare professionals and pharmacists devoted to finding out their attitude to the main problems associated with instructions for medicinal products. It was discovered that there was a lack of consensus on what could be regarded as official and unofficial sources of information about medicinal products. The poll elicited the attitude towards instructions for medicinal products among specialists and, indirectly, the general public, and helped establish a need for introducing changes into the instruction form.