Cleaning validation is primarily applicable to the cleaning of process manufacturing equipment in the pharmaceutical industry. The focus of cleaning validation is those cleaned surfaces that, if inadequately cleaned, could potentially contaminate the product subsequently manufactured in that same equipment.

This primarily covers product contact surfaces in the cleaned equipment. Cleaning validation is not performed only to satisfy regulatory authorities. The safety of patients is the primary objective, and product contamination presents serious liability issues for any pharmaceutical manufacturer or contract organization.

The history behind cleaning validation

The unhygienic conditions in Chicago’s meat- packing plants revealed in Upton Sinclair’s novel, “The Jungle”, allowed the government investigators and congress to enact the meat inspection law and the Pure Food and Drugs Act in 1906, the law forbade adulteration, misbranding adulteration, misbranding of foods, drinks, and drugs.
Thirty years later the drug tragedy “elixir of sulfanilamide” which killed over…