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Nightmare Prevention

Have you ever experienced a nightmare in which one of your “Top Ten” customers suddenly went with a competitor? Do you know which of your “Top Ten” accounts is most vulnerable to this nightmare? Are you so busy with account maintenance and prospecting programs that you inadvertently neglect accounts that historically brought tremendous sales success?

To avoid the nightmare of desertion, you need a definite plan to insure your best accounts are satisfied and know they are genuinely appreciated. Here are six important steps.
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Shifts in FDA Policy

Regulations applicable to finished pharmaceuticals (21 CFR § 210 & 211) are a broad set of requirements relevant to the entire range of drugs manufactured and marketed in the US today. Every manufacturer—from producers of sunscreen products to those creating the latest cancer fighting drugs—are required by law to use these requirements as the basis of their US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) compliance programs, including medical gas producers. FDA is willing to carve out exemptions for some types of products, and over the years medical gases have been the beneficiary of some of these. However, formalized exemptions to 21 CFR are rare events. Most exemptions come in the form of what the agency terms “enforcement discretion”—policy level decisions inside the agency that result in a particular class of products being exempted from compliance with an identified set of requirements. The most infamous exemption in our industry is the FDA decision permitting emergency medical service (EMS) squads to fill and distribute medical gases in virtually an unregulated environment.
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