Managing Nitrite Impurities: A Combined Supplier-Manufacturer View to Nitrosamine Risks

Ulrich Reichert heads the regulatory management - pharma and food materials organization of the life science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. He is responsible for registration of APIs and excipients with health authorities (master files), and he acts as the principal contact for site registration with the GMP-supervisory authority. Ulrich is a pharmacist by training, holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in drug regulatory affairs,  and has more than 20 years of experience in quality and regulatory requirements for raw and starting materials in the pharmaceutical industry. 

Joerg Schlingemann is a director and principal expert for quality control systems within Merck's healthcare quality unit. He studied molecular biology in Uppsala and Heidelberg, where he completed a doctorate degree at the German Cancer Research Center in 2005. He has 14 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in various roles within quality control and quality assurance. Since late 2019, Joerg has been leading EMD Serono’s analytical activities for N-nitrosamines, based on which he has authored or co-authored several scientific publications dealing with analytical challenges, NDMA in metformin, nitrite in excipients, and the prevalence of NDSRIs. Joerg is an advocate of scientific collaboration, data sharing, and expressive visualization of data.

Sebastian Hickert is a senior manager for analytical and preparative liquid chromatography within Merck's central analytical department. He obtained his Ph.D. in food chemistry from the University of Münster. Sebastian joined Merck in 2017 as a senior scientist before moving to managerial roles. His team uses liquid chromatography techniques such as (U)HPLC, IC, SFC, TLC, and others hyphenated to various detection options. Over the past few years, Sebastian's team has analyzed several hundred chemicals for nitrite and contributed to several scientific publications.