Aside from Thursday’s summit on President Barack Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative (which can be viewed in its entirety  here ), the Senate and House held two other hearings focused on the inner workings of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). At the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing, senators discussed FDA’s compassionate use program with the Goldwater Institute’s Dary Olsen, who’s been behind all of the Right-to-Try state legi...

Welcome to our European Regulatory Roundup, our weekly overview of the top EU regulatory news. Industry Leaders Warn Brexit Would Lead to Significant Regulatory Burdens More than 50 leaders of the British biopharmaceutical industry have warned of the regulatory and business upheaval that could result from the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, an event dubbed “Brexit.” In a letter in The Financial Times , the executives argue leaving the EU would result in “s...

One week after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency in response to Zika-linked clusters of microcephaly, it and authorities in the US and EU are mobilizing to accelerate the development of treatments and diagnostics for the disease. Obama Calls for $1.8 Billion in Funding On Monday, the White House announced it will ask Congress for more than $1.8 billion to establish an emergency fund to combat the Zika virus in the US and abroad. N...

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday declared a public health emergency in response to clusters of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) in Brazil and French Polynesia suspected to be caused by the Zika virus. "I am now declaring that the recent clusters of microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities reported in Latin America, following a similar cluster reported in French Polynesia in 2014 constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Co...

Officials from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) have shared their perspectives on evaluating treatments for Ebola in two articles appearing in Clinical Trials . The articles discuss some of the challenges the Ebola outbreak presented for studying drugs and vaccines to treat the disease. At the time the outbreak began, no products existed to treat Ebola, and those that were in development had not been tested in humans. Study ...

This article provides a high-level introduction to the Chinese regulatory framework, including requirements for marketing approval of imported drugs. An increasing number of pharmaceutical companies based outside China are interested in marketing their products in China as evidenced by the increasing number of clinical trial and marketing applications submitted by foreign companies. Obtaining marketing authorization approval equal to an Import Drug License (IDL) approv...

In 2015, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) maintained its momentum from 2014 , granting 93 positive opinions, 39 of which were for new active substances. The agency also recommended 18 orphan drugs for approval, breaking last year's record of 17. Notably, EMA trailed just behind the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) for the year. In 2015, CDER approved 45 new drugs, 21 of which had been granted orphan drug designati...

Late next year, the European Commission will begin reviewing the pharmaceutical company fee system that helps fund the European Medicines Agency (EMA). “The effectiveness and the efficiency of the system will be examined notably with respect to the sustainability and the fairness of the financial model of the fees charged by EMA to industry at large, including the remuneration paid by EMA to rapporteurs and experts from national competent authorities,” the commission sai...

This article discusses how medical products needed during public health emergencies can be made available to the public through the use of FDA's Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). During public health emergencies, the US government must respond quickly. Medical countermeasures (MCMs) are medical products, such as drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests needed during an emergency. MCMs are developed, manufactured, procured, stockpiled and distributed to protect or treat th...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has issued a new guidance to help companies applying to its adaptive pathways pilot. Background EMA launched its adaptive pathways pilot in 2014 to speed access to new medicines in areas of "high medical need" by leveraging existing approval pathways to support "early and progressive patient access" to new medicines. Under the pilot, drugs would either be authorized conditionally or in a staggered fashion by narrow indication befor...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) today issued draft scientific guidance intended to help sponsors design post-authorization efficacy studies (PAES). The guidance, which comes a year after a new regulation, known as the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 357/2014, established circumstances in which EU regulators could require PAES for all medicines. In the past, PAES were typically only required for medicines approved conditionally or under exceptional circumstanc...

New EU regulations for medical devices and in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) could be adopted as early as next year, a European Commission representative told attendees at RAPS' Regulatory Convergence on Tuesday. The legislation would introduce stricter premarket rules for a range of medical devices, increase the powers and responsibilities of notified bodies and require new clinical evidence in some cases. On 5 October 2015, the Ministers of the EU countries agreed on a gene...