Dr. Bernd Renger was born on 30 September 1947 in Alsfeld, Hesse, Germany. He passed away on 25 November 2024, after a 2-year battle against his illness.

Bernd Renger studied chemistry in Giessen, Germany, from 1972 to 1977. He obtained his doctorate in preparative organic chemistry in the group of Professor Dieter Seebach. Since 1986, he has worked continuously as an inspection manager and later as a quality control manager. He began his career at Hoechst AG in pharmaceutical research, where he later moved to a pilot plant. He then moved to Mundipharma and became the head of quality control. He held senior positions as head of quality control and quality assurance in Germany and Austria at Byk Gulden, Baxter BioScience, and, most recently, Vetter Pharma Fertigung, where he worked from 2004 to 2010. After retirement in 2011, he worked as an independent consultant and auditor. His work focused on the development of efficient quality systems, the preparation and follow-up of inspections, the establishment of effective deviation management, and the design of sterile and aseptic processes. He was a lecturer at the Albstadt-Sigmaringen University of Applied Sciences and Ulm University as well as cofounder and long-term chair of the European Qualified Person Association, to which he actively contributed during 20 years. He was also a founding member of the European Compliance Academy’s Analytical Quality Control Group in 2010. Dr. Renger was author or coauthor of more than 90 publications on chemical and analytical issues as well as on topics such as deviation management, quality assurance systems, and the tasks of the Qualified Person. He also dealt with these topics as a coach and trainer in in-house training courses at local and global pharmaceutical companies. He conducted international audits of contract manufacturers and manufacturers of active ingredients, GMP services, and additives. He traveled and worked all over the world, especially during his time as an independent consultant for pharmaceutical and related industries, excipient and packaging material manufacturers, testing laboratories, and medical device manufacturers. He was also an invited speaker at several national agencies and organizations, such as the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety or the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and HealthCare (EDQM).

Bernd Renger was a member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of Planar Chromatography (JPC) from 2010, and he joined the Editorial Board in 2019. He was a friend of high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) and wrote a dozen publications on this method, beginning in 1988, with a particular focus on pharmaceutical quality control. During his most active phase, he was a frequently invited speaker at HPTLC meetings. In intense discussions during one of these meetings, he complained about the declining quality of TLC papers, especially in the field of pharmaceutical quality control. I therefore asked him to work as a reviewer for JPC to improve the quality of the papers submitted. He agreed and took on this task more than 250 times over the following 15 years. This work as a reviewer was the inspiration for his well-known article from 2011 on “The Frustrated Reviewer—Recurrent Failures in Manuscripts Describing Validation of Quantitative TLC/HPTLC Procedures for Analysis of Pharmaceuticals.” His frank and free speech in this article was unique in the rather restrained language of science. Using his experience as a peer reviewer, he complained that some manuscripts “dealing with planar chromatographic methods are characterized [by] several typical misconceptions and methodological failures—either out of ignorance or the mere sloppiness of some authors.” He was one of the first to criticize that “many submitted HPTLC manuscripts (and already published articles) fail to demonstrate the methods they report are fit for the intended purpose.” Bernd Renger did not regard HPTLC as an obsolete chromatographic method, but repeatedly pointed out that the quality standards applied in the development of planar chromatographic methods and their validation must be comparable to—or even higher than—those of other chromatographic techniques. The acceptance of some of these not satisfying papers, he criticized, “can only be explained in terms of some sort of bonus, conceded to this Cinderella-type technique.”

In addition to science, Bernd Renger was responsible for four departments and around 210 employees in industry as head of quality control and quality assurance. He loved good food, especially red wine, as he was not allowed to drink beer owing to his celiac disease. He had a well-stocked wine cellar at home, which he donated to his friends in his testament. He loved jazz music and regularly attended small and large jazz concerts around the globe. No journey was too long for him, whether in Europe or worldwide. He loved driving his car and listening to his beloved jazz music, because he had an automatic CD changer in the trunk with which he could listen to music for hours without repeating a single song. He was very sporty, loved cycling, and enjoyed cycling through Italy on vacation. Owing to his ambitious nature, he loved challenges, and it was easy to underestimate his strength and endurance. He lived in Radolfzell on Lake Constance because he had a special relationship with the water. He was an active rower in his youth. After two third places in 1973 and 1975, he became German champion in the double sculls in 1976. In his private life, he was an impressive personality with his own, well-founded opinions, and he was not afraid to express them forcefully. He was married and the father of two sons. He managed an enormous workload, but he was always helpful, and, above all, he kept his promises and humor. It was not unusual for his articles, reviews, or simple information to arrive late in the evening or even at night.

We mourn the loss of an open-minded person, an HPTLC supporter, an outstanding energetic scientist, and a good friend.

(Editor-in-Chief of JPC from 2006 to 2023)

Supplemented by Gertrud Morlock

(Co-Editor-in-Chief of JPC from 2023)