Perhaps the time is right for the industry to consider the use of a combination of sound
science and reasonable risk assessment to change the current practice of the retrospective
use of method validation to the new paradigm of live validation of purity methods based on
the current information embedded in the chromatogram. Laboratories that work in a GMP
environment are required to produce extensive documentation to show that the methods are
suitable. Pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies thoroughly adhere to these
requirements, inundating industry with an avalanche of validation work that has
questionable value toward the future assessment of uncertainty. The predication of
uncertainty provides an alternative that has the potential to reduce the work required to
demonstrate method suitability and, in turn, provide greater assurance of the validity of the
results from the specific analysis in real time.