The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday released a preliminary list of the new drug applications (NDAs) that will be converted to biologics license applications (BLAs) on 23 March 2020. The shift is caused by the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 , which clarified the statutory authority under which certain protein products will be regulated by amending the definition of a “biological product” to include a “protein (except any chemical...

Following the release of PhRMA’s Special 301 Report urging the Office of the US Trade Representative to better protect American pharma companies’ intellectual property in foreign countries, BIO has released its own report this week, with an eye toward compulsory licensing and regulatory data protection. Similar to PhRMA, BIO singles out Malaysia as a “Priority Foreign Country” following the issuance of a compulsory license in 2017 to make generic versions of Gilead’s he...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday released two new draft Q&A guidance documents on biosimilar development and the deemed to be a license provision of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCIA), as well as two final guidance documents on the same topics and one proposed rule amending the definition of a biological product. The efforts are part of FDA’s decade-long work to begin, starting in March 2020, transitioning the approved...

Late last month, Malaysia's government issued a compulsory license in an effort to offer a less-expensive version of Gilead's hepatitis C drug and increase access. Reports of the government move in Malaysia coincided with Gilead's decision on 24 August to extend its voluntary licenses on its hepatitis C medicines to include Malaysia, Ukraine and Belarus. Previously, the company signed agreements with 11 India-based manufacturers to make generics of its hepati...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is poised to make a comeback from the relatively low number of new drugs approved in 2016, though it's unlikely to match the approval highs from 2014 and 2015. Already in 2017, FDA has approved 14 new drugs , though that quick pace is not likely to continue and the rest of the year is shaping up to be an average or slightly above average year for approvals. Based on data from BioPharmCatalyst , FDA has just over 20 remaining a...

The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Monday officially amended its Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to allow developing countries facing public health problems and lacking the capacity to produce generic drugs the ability to obtain such medicines from third country producers under "compulsory licensing" arrangements.  The amendment, which is the first since TRIPS was created in 1995, provides a permanent legal basis for both poten...

The United Nations (UN) High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines released its long-awaited report on Wednesday, with recommendations sure to rile up the pharmaceutical industry as it calls for World Trade Organization (WTO) members to no longer link the cost of research and development (R&D) with drug prices, as well as for an increase in the issuance of compulsory licenses and to require the disclosure of pharmaceutical R&D costs. The call for more compulsory license...

Welcome to our Asia Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top regulatory news in Asia. CFDA Introduces Draft Clinical Trial Data Verification Procedures The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) has released a provisional document regarding the validation of clinical trial data. Under the model, CFDA’s audit team will conduct on-site assessments of the records kept by clinical trials to verify the authenticity and integrity of data purporting to show the ...

An Indian manufacturer has filed the third-ever compulsory license application in India for AstraZeneca's type II diabetes drug saxagliptin, SpicyIP reports. Background Compulsory licensing is a legal provision that allows for the licensing of intellectual property rights without the rights holder's consent. The power to grant these licenses is seen by some countries, especially low- and middle-income ones, as a powerful tool to ensure important drugs are available a...

After being questioned by a member of the European Parliament, the European Commission (EC) says neither it nor the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have the power to acquire patents or issue a compulsory license. Background In the past two years, drugmakers have launched several drugs to treat hepatitis C (HCV), a disease which left untreated can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer. The new generation of HCV treatments, led by Gilead's Sovaldi and Harvoni, are highly eff...

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is conducting its sixth review of India's trade policies this week. To coincide with the review, the WTO Secretariat has released a report on India's trade and related policies, which highlights areas of many areas of progress, while noting some areas of concern related to India's policies on drug patents. Background The WTO routinely reviews its members' trade-related policies in order to track developments that may affect global ...

A US-based trade group wants to see the United States Trade Representative (USTR) pursue stricter limits on the ability of countries to bypass patent protection. In its Special 301 Submission 2015 , the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) argues that compulsory licenses should only be issued in “exceptional situations,” where there is a pressing public health need. What is a Compulsory License? Compulsory licensing (CL) is a legal provisi...