The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finalized a guidance for industry on development of drugs and therapeutic biologics for treating eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a chronic, allergic inflammatory disease of the esophagus, for which there are currently no approved therapies.   The guidance addresses the agency’s thinking on clinical trials and development programs, focusing on trial population and design, efficacy and safety, as well as pediatric considera...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday released its latest batch of product-specific guidances, posting 19 new and 17 revised draft guidances, bringing the total number of product-specific guidances issued by the agency to 1,938.   The guidances , which FDA posts quarterly, are intended to promote generic competition by clarifying the agency’s expectations for the studies required to demonstrate that a generic drug is equivalent to a reference listed drug...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday issued draft guidance providing recommendations to drugmakers on evaluating cancer drugs in patients with central nervous system (CNS) metastases.   FDA says the guidance is meant to inform clinical trial designs to support product labeling that describes antitumor activity of drugs or biologics in patients with CNS metastases from solid tumors originating in other parts of the body.   "There are few effectiv...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday finalized guidance making recommendations to sponsors encouraging them to enroll male patients in breast cancer clinical trials.   The final guidance comes one year after the agency issued the draft version for comment and includes only minor changes from the previous iteration. (RELATED: FDA calls for men to be enrolled in breast cancer trials , 26 August 2019) .   As in the draft version, FDA explains that ...

In an immediately effective guidance issued Tuesday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sets its expectations for the development and licensure of vaccines to prevent coronavirus disease (COVID-19), including considerations for manufacturing, nonclinical and clinical studies and post-licensure requirements.   For a vaccine that would be widely deployed against COVID-19, FDA says it expects sponsors to demonstrate that the vaccine is at least 50% effective in a p...

Since 2007, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a handful of special "priority review" vouchers (PRVs) which allow its recipient to expedite the review of any one of its new drug products. What are these vouchers, why is FDA issuing them and what benefit might they have for society? Find out in our latest Regulatory Explainer on the Priority Review Voucher system. Last updated on 25 February 2020 to include: Vifor Pharma said on 17 February that it p...

The European Commission recently concluded that its database of medical device information (Eudamed) will only be operational once all modules are fully functional and an independent audit has been conducted, so the commission has decided to launch the database simultaneously for both medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics together in May 2022. The two-year delay of the database for medical devices (the commission reiterated that date of application of the Medical Dev...

The European Commission’s Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) on Friday unveiled its plans for releasing almost 50 future guidance documents related to the Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) and the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR), with the bulk of the new guidance coming on the oversight of notified bodies (NBs) and clinical investigations and evaluation (CIE). The list also notes that much of the guidance will be endorsed by the MDCG later this year or in 202...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday finalized a question and answer guidance on the type of manufacturing facility information that should be included in applications submitted to the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. FDA explains that the guidance is meant to help companies understand how not to submit extraneous information or misplaced or missing information that could result in delays, Refu...

In June 2017, Leah Christl, former biosimilar lead at FDA, told a conference in Chicago that interchangeable biosimilars were likely coming to the US market within two years . And although no interchangeable biosimilar has been approved by FDA yet, and Christl has since moved on to Amgen , progress on interchangeable biosimilars has been made, albeit slowly, in the intervening years. Most recently, Boehringer Ingelheim announced that it has completed , as of last ...

The US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) will issue a report next year on the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) postmarket surveillance of medical devices, which has come under fire in recent months. OIG says it will assess and describe how FDA's “established passive postmarket surveillance system” identifies and tracks safety concerns and responds to them. “We will also describe how elements of FDA's newer surveillance ...

FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) on Friday released its FY 2020 draft and final guidance list, which features a few repeats from last year and new drafts coming on device servicing and remanufacturing, unique device identification and patient-reported outcome measures used in device submissions, among others. As in years past, CDRH divides the list between “A-list” draft and final guidances, which are a priority, and a smaller “B-list” of draft an...