Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) released a three-part medical device action plan, part of which will make adverse event reports more timely, as well as enhance public awareness on and the agency and device regulatory system. The plan also identifies additional opportunities for TGA to increase transparency, with stakeholder consultations on proposed changes to regulatory requirements and forthcoming guidance materials. Until early 2020, potential c...

Patient groups, drugmakers and other organizations are calling for changes to the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recently revised draft guidance on developing drugs to treat rare diseases.   The 24-page draft guidance was revised last February after first being published in 2015. The revision included updates to the agency’s approach to natural history studies, a discussion of issues for evaluating biomarkers for consideration as surrogate endpoints and a ne...

As part of efforts to make breast implants safer, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should consider additional postmarket data reporting requirements on breast implant manufacturers, the agency’s General and Plastic Surgery Devices Panel suggested after a two-day meeting. On whether to remove textured breast implants from the US market as other countries have done, the panel argued data is lacking to support such a recommendation as it would reduce options for p...

Hundreds of thousands of units of Medtronic implantable cardiac devices, programmers and home monitors are vulnerable to cybersecurity incidents, according to two US federal government notices. On Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an FDA safety communication, while the US Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) issued an advisory to flag cybersecurity vulnerabilities detected in...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday finalized guidance on the nonclinical studies drugmakers should conduct when developing products to treat severely debilitating or life-threatening hematologic disorders (SDLTHDs).   FDA classifies SDLTHDs as hematologic conditions that cause shorter life expectancy or greatly diminished quality of life even with available treatments.   FDA notes that the guidance does not apply to hematologic cancers and covers...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday announced it will go ahead with a survey of healthcare professionals (HCPs) on how they are impacted by prescription drug promotion aimed at a professional audience.   The announcement comes after the agency consulted on its plans for  the survey in March 2018 and follows two earlier surveys that looked at HCPs’ attitudes toward direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. The survey will also include questions about HCPs’...

Patients and health care providers should know that the safety and effectiveness of robotically-assisted surgical devices for the prevention or treatment of cancer has not been established for use in the US, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety communication warned on Thursday. The safety communication urges caution when using robotically-assisted surgical devices for mastectomy and any other cancer-related surgery, citing the lack of FDA evaluation on use of ...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alerted the public late Monday of a post-marketing safety clinical trial for Xeljanz (tofacitinib) that found an increased risk of lung blood clots and death in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were taking a dose of 10 mg twice daily. The drug safety communication noted the increased risk was observed in the post-marketing trial set as a requirement on Pfizer following the first approval  of Xeljanz in 2012. It comes...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday sought to quell a series of media reports raising questions with the agency’s declining inspectional work around the globe and concerns with the agency’s oversight of generic drugs. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Janet Woodcock wrote in an extended statement that recent press reports inaccurately raised questions with the quality of the US drug supply and wron...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a new rule on Thursday to update regulatory requirements for most sunscreen active ingredients currently on the US market. The 264-page proposed rule was decades in the making, with collaborators ranging from agency staff and outside scientific experts to patient advocacy groups. The new regulatory framework it describes is aimed at providing better assurance of the safety, efficacy and preventive qualities of over-the-...

Swissmedic said Monday that based on the currently available information, the association Swiss Plastic Surgery recommends using smooth implants rather than textured implants where permitted by the clinical situation. France’s National Agency of Medicine and Health Products (ANSM) echoed that recommendation after observing most known breast implant associated-anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) cases in patients with textured breast implants. But the committee doe...

A bipartisan group of lawmakers who serve on the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce (E&C) sent a letter to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Wednesday to request a briefing on the sartan safety issues that prompted a string of recalls worldwide. “Beginning in July 2018, there have been at least 15 recalls issued for a variety of angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARB), which are generally used to treat high blood pressure,” the E...