This article discusses disease etiology, history and symptoms of Parkinson's disease as well as ongoing research and new treatment options. Introduction There are hundreds of diseases named after a person. These are called "eponymous diseases," and a small sample includes Crohn's disease, Salmonellosis, Huntington's disease, Hodgkin's lymphoma, Lou Gehrig's disease, Tourette's syndrome and the well-known Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's Disease (PD). PD is one of...

Talk of bringing down the price of pharmaceuticals often hinges on generic competition, and the US is seeing approvals of new generic drugs faster and more consistently than ever – a trend likely to continue. The progress comes as US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Thursday indicated that the agency will expand which abbreviated new drug applications (ANDA) will see priority reviews. "Earlier this year we made changes to how we pri...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday issued a revised version of its draft guidance on the information that must be pre-submitted in order to receive a priority review for an abbreviated new drug application (ANDA). As part of the negotiations to reauthorize the Generic Drug User Fee Amendments (GDUFA II), FDA agreed to shorten its review of eligible priority generics by two months if sponsors submit a pre-submission facility correspondence (PFC) at leas...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday issued draft guidance detailing clinical considerations for drugmakers looking to develop products to treat pediatric gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). FDA says the draft is meant to be a starting point for discussions between the agency, drugmakers, academia and the public and sets out the agency's current thinking on potential study populations, endpoints and clinical pharmacology issues related to dosing. Sp...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday issued a draft guidance detailing the agency's new program for breakthrough medical devices created by the 21st Century Cures Act . The new breakthrough devices program supersedes and combines several of the agency's existing programs to speed access to new devices. "Earlier and more frequent interaction between the FDA and manufacturers … should allow manufacturers to make the best use of their resources to bring st...

This editorial is meant to encourage discussion and thinking about the value of diet and nutrition in the management of disease and a regulatory framework that would be useful in the US to protect public health and provide benefit to individuals who live with chronic disease or an increased risk of such diseases. Introduction The current regulatory approach, with respect to food and nutrition, tends to categorize individuals as consumers or patients and yet these stat...

Philadelphia-based Spark Therapeutics took its gene therapy before the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee on Thursday and the panel voted 16 to 0 in favor of approving the subretinal injection, representing a major step forward for adeno-associated virus gene therapies. The therapy, known as Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec), has been granted priority review by FDA (the agency has until 12 January 2018 t...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued seven new or updated guidances offering advice to medical device makers on its user fee programs and how FDA and industry actions impact the performance goals set by the fourth iteration of the Medical Device User Fee Amendments (MDUFA IV). In its MDUFA IV commitments, FDA agreed to tighter timelines to reach decisions for most medical device submissions in exchange for increased user fees and the introduction of a n...

Thanks to the new user fee legislation known as the FDA Reauthorization Act (FDARA), the Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Act (FDCA) has been amended to allow for third-party reviews of Class II devices intended to be permanently implantable, life-sustaining or life-supporting. But which devices will be allowed such third-party reviews and what will be the implications? That decision will come from FDA, which has to issue guidance on the topic sometime in the next two ...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) on Monday finalized a 2015 draft guidance on how to document institutional review board (IRB) activities. The guidance, developed jointly by the two agencies, details how and what IRBs should document in the meeting minutes they are required to keep under 45 CFR 46.115(a)(2) and 21 CFR 56.115(a)(2), which include: Attendance at the me...

This article provides insight for regulatory professionals regarding developing a successful advertising and promotional review of restricted medical devices. It demonstrates how medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies can improve communication and collaboration between regulatory and marketing to streamline and improve the compliance review process for promotional materials and achieve an effective marketing strategy. The Dance "How small can I make...

A generic drug industry group and several companies have taken issue with recent US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) draft guidance on pre-submission facility correspondence (PFC) that spells out what companies need to do to obtain faster abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) reviews. In June, FDA released the draft guidance noting that it is "critical" for there to be a two-month lead time to determine whether facility inspections will be needed for the 8-mon...