The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on Wednesday announced that it would participate in the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Payer Communication Task Force (PCTF) to help speed patients’ access to the best new medical devices, diagnostics and other health-related technologies. FDA’s Center for Devices & Radiological Health (CDRH) initially established the PCTF to facilitate communication between device manufacturers and payers to pot...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday released its latest performance data, revealing that the number of premarket applications (PMAs) for devices with a major deficiency letter on the first FDA review cycle is up to its highest level ever, and up more than 25% since 2015. On the approval side, FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) continues to approve PMAs at a high rate and almost as quickly as the agency ever has. For 510(...

As part of an attempt to catch up with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Health Canada, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on Monday released five new consultations for public comment, including one that would forge new priority review and provisional approval pathways. TGA’s priority review pathway, like Health Canada’s and FDA's  pathway with the same name , will involve faster reviews of prescription drugs ...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved Minnesota-based St. Jude Medical’s Amplatzer PFO Occluder, which is intended to reduce the risk of a stroke for some patients who previously had a stroke. The device – which was marketed more than a decade ago under a humanitarian device exemption (HDE) but was voluntarily withdrawn by St. Jude in 2006 after FDA concluded that the target population for it was greater than 4,000 patients – is specifically for s...

China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) announced Thursday that its priority review and approval procedure for medical devices will come into force as of 1 January 2017. The move is part of CFDA’s implementation of reforms to its approval systems for drugs and devices, and to meet the clinical demands of medical devices. According to the law firm Ropes & Gray , the new policy, first drafted in June, will allow applicants with a Class II device (limited to importe...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) on Tuesday proposed withdrawing two generic versions of Janssen’s extended-release attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) drug Concerta (methylphenidate hydrochloride) two years after determining that they do not provide sufficient therapeutic effects. The manufacturers of the two Concerta generics - Kremers Urban Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of the Lannett Company, and Ma...

This article discusses the development of a regulatory strategy allowing companies to identify opportunities and problems prospectively, improve utilization of company resources and focus the development team on the key objectives and assist in developing products with a positive benefit-risk profile demonstrating differential advantages and value for prescribers and payers. The term "strategy," per Merriam Webster (Edition 11), means "a careful plan or method for achi...

With the intent to cut back on the type of litigation that can delay the approval and marketing of generic drugs under 505(b)(2) applications and abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday released a final rule that revises and clarifies its regulations on a number of different parts of the pharmaceutical patent process. The 289-page final rule amends FDA’s regulations to facilitate better compliance with and enforce...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday approved Sarepta Therapeutics’ first drug to treat patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a rare genetic disorder that causes progressive muscle deterioration and weakness in young children. The approval is highly controversial after a FDA advisory committee voted against approval in April as the outside experts said there was not substantial evidence that the drug is effective in providing clinical benefit...

If the European Medicines Agency (EMA) transfers its headquarters to another EU member state, which is all but certain following the Brexit vote, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is warning that the “appeal of London as an environment for the development of pharmaceuticals would be lost.” The harsh critique comes as the EMA, which has 890 employees of various nationalities at its headquarters in London, has said the decision on where to move from its current locale...

Although the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 2015 approval of the vaccine BioThrax for postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) for inhalational anthrax wasn’t the first approval under the rarely used Animal Rule, researchers in Nature explained on Thursday why it is a “significant step forward” in the approval of new vaccines and other medical countermeasures under the pathway. Background The Animal Rule pathway (codified here ) was designed to allow companies to bri...

Although only one abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) and one 505(b)(2) application were delayed in 2015 because of citizen petitions, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reiterated its concerns that the petitions do not raise valid scientific issues and are only being used to delay the approval of competing products, according to the Thursday release of the FY 2015 report to Congress on approval delays from citizen petitions. In 2015, FDA notes that it ap...