Evaluation of extreme depyrogenation conditions on the surface hydrolytic resistance of glass containers for pharmaceutical use

PDA J Pharm Sci Technol. 2024 Nov 23:pdajpst.2024.012972. doi: 10.5731/pdajpst.2024.012972. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

This paper is the result of a round robin activity run by the Technical Committee TC12, Pharma Packaging, of the International Commission on Glass (ICG). The study was motivated by a concern about the risk that the depyrogenation treatment of glass vials, when performed in an abnormal way that deviates from the usual procedure, may have a negative impact on the hydrolytic resistance of the container inner surface. The study was executed by using 10 ml clear type I Borosilicate glass vials representing four different compositions. For the applied depyrogenation process extreme parameters were chosen to with maximum temperature up to 400°C, exposure times up to 72 hours and different amounts of residual water inside as starting conditions. Those treated samples were tested in seven different laboratories as a round robin test.. A large amount of data was obtained, which clearly indicate that the hydrolytic resistance performance of the Type I Borosilicate glass vials is not affected even by such extreme depyrogenation conditions (e.g. 400°C, 72hours and not perfect dried inside). This is an important and useful result, both for glass and pharma companies, based on the 12.000 analytical data collected during the interlaboratory activity.

Keywords: Depyrogenation; Glass vials; Hydrolytic resistance; ICP-OES; Round robin test; Type I borosilicate glass.