The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday finalized guidance on its qualified infectious disease product (QIDP) designation program.   The 12-page guidance finalizes a draft version released for comment in 2018 and includes a revised question and answer section providing clarification on the types of products the agency considers to be antibacterial or antifungal drugs for the purposes of the designation. (RELATED: FDA Drafts Q&A Guidance on QIDP Designati...

Issuance of a product specific guidance should not “diminish innovation or creativity” in generic drug development, Robert Lionberger, director for the office of research and standards in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Office of Generic Drugs, said at a 5 May webinar on the development of product specific guidance.   FDA officials said that the number of a product specific guidances (PSGs) issued by the Office of G...

Feature articles during March focused on regulatory intelligence (RI), including first-hand accounts of setting up a dedicated process for RI monitoring and developing an in-house RI database, as well as an examination of the implications of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) new integrated review template for RI. Also included were articles on the importance a global unique device identification (UDI) system, the FDA’s Bad Ad program, and the importance of writ...

Variance between medical device regulations in different jurisdictions complicates creation of a global unique device identification (UDI) system, causing compliance barriers for manufacturers and adoption barriers for device users. As regulatory agencies advance their UDI initiatives, we reflect on the principles guiding this system not only for regulatory purposes, but as essential to improving the value of healthcare supply chain, clinical, and research data. This artic...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week issued 36 new and revised draft product-specific guidances meant to facilitate the development of generic drugs by clarifying the agency’s expectations for the studies required to demonstrate bioequivalence (BE) to a reference listed drug (RLD).   The latest batch of guidances includes 22 new and 14 revised draft guidances covering drugs to treat prostate cancer, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis and numerous other cond...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday unveiled recommendations for vaccine, drug and diagnostic test developers to address the impact of COVID-19 variants on the efficacy and performance of their products.   The recommendations are made across four new and updated guidances targeting vaccines , drugs and biologics , monoclonal antibodies and diagnostic tests .   “The purpose of these guidances is to address the emergence and potential future emer...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) has released its list of draft and final guidances it plans to issue in 2021.   The list contains just 14 guidances, half of which will be draft documents, down from 31 guidances in 2020 and 20 guidances in 2019. Of those 14 guidances, only a few are new additions to the list, with the remainder being carried over from the previous year.   CBER was able to cross more tha...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) released a list of the new and revised draft guidances it plans to release in 2021.   The agenda, while oftentimes aspirational, provides insights as to what the agency’s drug center’s new guidance priorities are for the coming year. However, the list does not include draft or revised guidances the agency plans to finalize in 2021. (RELATED: 2020 CDER draft and revised guidance...

In guidance released Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides the timelines it will stick to when reviewing responses to complete response letters (CRLs) for drugs and biologics when a facility assessment or inspection is required in order for the agency to make a decision on the application.   FDA’s ability to conduct on-site inspections has been dramatically curtailed amid the COVID-19 pandemic due to public health concerns and travel restrictions. ...

FDA has released three device-specific guidance documents detailing performance criteria in support of its Safety and Performance Based Pathway. The texts cover magnetic resonance (MR) receive-only coils, spinal plating systems and non-spinal metallic bone screws.   Last year, FDA published guidance on the optional Safety and Performance Based Pathway. The text set out the agency’s thinking on a pathway intended to enable companies to show a new product is as safe ...

In its latest quarterly release of product-specific guidances meant to promote the development of generic drugs, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday posted 13 new and 21 revised draft guidances, bringing the total number of such guidances released by the agency to 1,974.   The guidances are intended to foster generic competition by clarifying the agency’s expectations for the studies required to demonstrate that a generic drug is equivalent to a refe...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued draft guidance for industry on the use of physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) analyses for biopharmaceutics applications. A PBPK analysis uses models and simulations combining physiology, population, and drug substance and product characteristics to mechanistically describe the pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic behaviors of a particular drug product, according to the FDA. The idea behind using this techni...