Benefit-risk (BR) assessment, a central part of regulatory decision making, has become increasingly structured in response to the need for consistency and transparency, and in alignment with the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) 2021 draft BR guidance. Early planning and established processes are critical to successful execution. To help regulatory affairs professionals guide clinical development teams in planning and conducting patient-focused structured BR assess...

The pharmaceutical industry would like to get more clarity on the timing of drug-drug interaction (DDI) studies and the scope of these DDI studies in their comments to regulators on the proposed International Council for Harmonization’s (ICH) M12 guideline, said a regulator at an ICH regional meeting sponsored by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada on 24 February.   Rajanikanth Madabushi, associate director for guidance and scientific policy at ...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ) reported that progress has been made over the past year in advancing its quality management maturity initiative and in its quality assessment review process in its 2022 annual report.   The report also describes progress made in other areas under OPQ’s remit. The office’s previous two reports focused largely on its COVID-19 response. (RELATED:  FDA’s OPQ reports on drug quality efforts ...

Advertising and promotion (ad promo) of prescription drugs is regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 1992, the agency implemented Subpart H of Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to allow for the accelerated approval of new drugs for serious or life-threatening illnesses. Approval of a drug through the Subpart H pathway introduced a range of regulatory requirements, some of which had specific implications for the ad promo of Subpart H drug...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) should brief pilot participants ahead of the actual assessments and use a simplified rubric for scoring or rating a manufacturers quality management maturity (QMM) program. These were some of the lessons learned as the agency develops a future rating program for evaluating manufacturers on drug quality, according to results reported in a 10 January article published in The AAPS Journal .   These pilots “afforded FDA the opp...

The definition of “dietary supplement” in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act includes several provisions limiting what can be a legal dietary supplement based on the ingredients used and delivery form, as well as whether a substance has a history of drug use. This article explores the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) use of this last provision, often called “drug preclusion.” The authors examine the history of the provision, Congress’s purported purpose for ...

The pharmaceutical industry would like the International Council for Harmonization (ICH) to clarify dosing information for rifampin and requests additional information on the use of biomarkers as a type of drug-drug interaction study (DDI), while the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and Pfizer want more flexibility in developing a DDI strategy.   The comments were made in response to the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) call for feedb...

The assessment aid (AAid), an initiative of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE), was introduced in 2018 as a pilot program to help streamline the agency’s review of oncology drug applications. In this article, Genentech shares its experience with the AAid to date and provides recommendations for preparing the AAid and improving the process to fully realize its benefits. Keywords – assessment aid, FDA OCE pilots, oncology dr...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) draft guidance on risk management plans (RMPs) has overstepped the agency’s statutory bounds in requiring manufacturers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) as well as prescription drug manufacturers to submit risk management plans (RMPs) to avert drug shortages.   This requirement could impose the very drug shortages it is designed to prevent, instead of just targeting those products at risk of drug shortage, pharmace...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prevented 317 drug shortages in 2021, the highest number since the agency began tracking drug shortages in 2012, according to a recent report released by the agency.   The agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) has been tracking drug shortages since the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) was passed in 2012, which requires FDA to release an annual report to Congress; FDA’s Center f...

This article explores the role of a generalist and a specialist within the regulatory profession, as well as considerations in today's evolving regulatory landscape. To decide on the best path forward, it is important to understand current global market expectations from the regulatory profession, as well as compensation depending on job level and education in the healthcare sector.   Keywords – generalist, generalized specialist, professional development, skill set...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday outlined a pared-down plan to collect quality metrics data from drugmakers in an attempt to renew its earlier stalled effort to obtain manufacturing quality data as a means of mitigating potential drug shortages and promoting enhanced quality management in the pharmaceutical industry.   The agency stressed in an announcement that this program would be different from the original quality metrics draft guidance unv...