Quality and pressure: BS5750 and the pharmaceutical environment

The legislation regarding product quality throughout the veterinary pharmaceuticals industry is very stringent and firmly enforced by several government agencies. Product quality is necessarily high as poor quality products simply cannot be licensed. The pharmaceutical companies have lived with ‘quality’ for so long that quality of production is ingrained into their culture. All companies wish to be regarded as quality manufactures by their customers and the public at large. The British Standards Institute offers BS5750 accreditation as a mark of approval for following a defined quality system that covers the entire value chain of any company that wishes to implement it. Archer Pharamaceuticals is a major UK veterinary pharmaceuticals group of companies that (in common with other manufactures in the UK) is experiencing very little environmental pressure to achieve BS5750. The research indicates that the industry, and its customers, to be so tightly focused on those standards that the added benefits of a TQM system go largerly unrecognized. There appears to be some movement towards accreditation, and there are perceptions that BS5750 may become an industry norm at some time in the future. There is no appreciable direct pressure on the industry for accreditation at the moment.