The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday announced it will delay implementation of its final rule clarifying when tobacco products are regulated as medical products until March 2018 in response to a petition from biopharmaceutical industry groups that raised questions about how the rule would alter the agency's definition of intended uses for drugs and medical devices. The petition, filed by on behalf the Medical Information Working Group (MIWG), the Pharmaceu...

The Medical Information Working Group (MIWG), the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) have petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) following its “unexpected decision” last month to revise the definitions of “intended use” for drugs and medical devices. The industry groups call for this final rule to be stayed indefinitely and reconsidered because FDA failed to give fair no...

The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) is at odds with a recent proposal by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create a public facing electronic database for home-use medical device labels. In October, FDA announced the proposed rule , which would require the makers of Class II and Class III medical devices intended for home-use to submit the labels and package inserts for their products electronically. These electronic labels and package insert...

As part of efforts to reduce an increasing number of adverse events from home-use medical devices, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing to create an online database of all such device labels and to require companies to submit the labels and package inserts in an electronic format.  The shift comes as FDA reviewers claim that the agency receives reports of approximately three to five of the most serious types of adverse events (deaths, fires, explosions...

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on Tuesday said that single-use medical devices may be re-manufactured for use in the UK, though the remanufacturers should meet all relevant criteria under the appropriate device directives and place a CE mark on their product. The shift to allow such re-manufacturing comes with new guidance from MHRA, which notes that the re-manufacturing of single-use devices and similar processes have existed outsid...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday finalized two question and answer guidance documents on charging for investigational drugs and expanded access for the compassionate use of investigational drugs for those with life-threatening diseases or conditions, as well as a new streamlined form for applying for expanded access. The new form, known as the Form FDA 3926, is part of an expedited process to help patients gain access to drugs that are still in clini...

Pharmaceutical companies operating in the EU will need to collect and report information on the off-label use of their medicines under new obligations making their way from draft to final form at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) this summer. In late April, EMA offered a reflection paper , open for comment through 29 July, which offers the agency’s proposal for the collection and reporting of information on off-label use for marketing authorization holders (MAHs), in ...

The Senate on Tuesday voted in favor of providing $1.1 billion in new funds to fight the Zika virus, which continues to spread in Central and South America and is expected to hit the US soon. The 68-29 vote in the Senate means the new funding could be added to an unrelated spending bill, though the funds are significantly less than the $1.9 billion President Barack Obama and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) requested three months ago to fight Zika. The Senate vot...

The simplification of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) compassionate use process (announced last February and expected to be finalized very soon) may not actually be all that much of a simplification in terms of the amount of time it takes a physician to fill out the form, an FDA official told Focus on Tuesday. Richard Klein, director of the Patient Liaison Program in FDA’s Office of Health and Constituent Affairs, explained to Focus , following Monday’s ...

The fight over patients gaining access to investigational drugs via the compassionate use process is expected to get a lot easier in the near future, just as the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) nonprofit arm, the Reagan-Udall Foundation (RUF), is working to build an online navigator to help patients and physicians understand that process better. Compassionate use, also known as expanded access, is a process by which physicians can request that FDA allow the use o...

Patients and physicians desperate for access to a potentially life-saving investigational drug will be able to take some solace in the fact that the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) nonprofit, known as the Reagan-Udall Foundation, is currently working on an online tool to help aid the process of obtaining what are known as "compassionate use" or "expanded access" treatments. The small foundation, which is currently operating with six employees, has drafted a plan ...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking steps to enforce its oversight of diagnostic tests used to detect the Zika virus, with three new letters to two laboratories and two Texas hospitals for marketing what it says are "high risk" unapproved diagnostics. The letters, sent to MD Biosciences, First Diagnostic Corp. and two Texas hospitals, Texas Children's and Houston Methodist Hospital, call on the recipients to contact the agency within seven days to discuss...