New drug shortages in the US decreased in 2020, in part because of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) use of enforcement discretion to ensure an uninterrupted supply of critical medical products during the COVID-19 public health crisis.   Yet, the agency’s new drug shortages report to Congress said that while these actions helped avert shortages in the short-term, more work is needed to improve supply chain resiliency.   This report summarizes the agency...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Thursday opened a public consultation on the International Council for Harmonisation’s (ICH) S12 guideline on nonclinical biodistribution (BD) considerations for gene therapies.   The S12 guideline recently reached Step 2b of the ICH process after being endorsed at the ICH Assembly virtual meeting earlier this month. (RELATED: ICH reports ‘significant milestones’ reached on guidelines ranging from impurity testing to eCTD standa...

Two bipartisan bills aimed at clarifying what constitutes a new chemical entity (NCE) and providing education on biosimilars to consumers and physicians were signed into law by President Joe Biden on Friday.   The first bill, S. 415 , also known as the Ensuring Innovation Act , amends the Federal Food, Drug, Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) to replace the definition of an active ingredient with the active moiety definition used by FDA for the purposes of determining whether...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday announced it will pilot a new program it hopes will spur the development of novel drug development tools (DDTs) that do not fit within the agency’s existing DDT qualification programs.   The qualification process for DDTs was revamped under the 21 st Century Cures Act and FDA currently offers specific qualification programs for biomarkers, clinical outcome assessments (COAs) and animal models for use under the Anim...

A new study published in The BMJ  finds that only a third of new drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the decade from 2007-2017 have high therapeutic value, according to appraisal by one of five independent organizations.   However, the analysis found that drugs approved through expedited programs – and especially EMA’s programs – were more likely to have high therapeutic value.   “Most of the incre...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday announced it will not begin collecting drug manufacturing volume data next month as required by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).   Section 3112 of the CARES Act establishes new reporting requirements for drug manufacturers intended to improve the response to drug shortages, including expanding shortage reporting requirements for life-saving drugs to include drugs that are “critical...

A weekly update on new drug approvals and indications from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).   New approvals Fintepla gets the go-ahead for Dravet syndrome Zogenix’s Fintepla (fenfluramine) has been approved for the treatment of seizures associated with Dravet syndrome in patients aged 2 years or older. The syndrome is a rare, life-threatening form of epilepsy.   The approval was based on findings from two clinical studies in 202 participants aged ...

A weekly update on new drug approvals and indications from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).   New approvals Zepzelca handed accelerated approval for metastatic SCLC in adults Jazz Pharmaceuticals and PharmaMar’s Zepzelca (lurbinectedin) has been granted accelerated approval for adult patients with metastatic small cell lung cancer (SCLC) whose disease has progressed during or after platinum-based chemotherapy.   The indication was approved based o...

This article discusses the application of master files to the new dietary ingredient notification process to protect intellectual property of ingredient manufacturers and incentivize submission of NDI notifications. The author describes an NDI master file model, based on the US drug master file, as a proposal for consideration by the US Food and Drug Administration.   Introduction Innovation grows industries, and it is no different for the dietary supplement industry...

Feature articles during May focused on risk management and mitigation in dealing with contractors and vendors and included articles on best practices in good vendor management, use of risk management to support outsourcing activities, testing in-house versus outsourcing, and outsourcing in regulatory operations. Also included were in-depth examinations of challenges and opportunities in “bespoke” therapies, a critical appraisal of drug shortages in Germany and an update on...

This article discusses the advent of bespoke therapies, defined as the tailoring of medical treatment to the individual characteristics or symptoms and responses of a patient during all stages of care and as a new frontier beyond personalized medicine. The author covers the revolutionary genetic tools implementing such therapies and the clinical and nonclinical safety perspectives for bespoke therapies. The author concludes that with bespoke therapies we are entering a new...

This article discusses drug shortages in Germany, the root causes of production problems with active pharmaceutical ingredients, and drug product manufacturers. The authors offer analysis from the perspective of a medium-sized generic drug manufacturer. They outline a range of reasons for the shortages, all of which point to a “broken marketplace.” The authors conclude with a discussion of mitigation activities and address the current COVID-19 pandemic. They warn that drug...