Welcome to another installment of This Week at FDA, your weekly source for updates – big and small – on FDA, drug and medical device regulation, and what we’re reading from around the web. This week, we get a glimpse at FDA’s Spring regulatory agenda and get tips on several upcoming guidances. Plus, we learn about a new 510(k) pilot program for CBER-regulated medical devices.   Next week, FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will ...

There is an unprecedented level of support among regulators to advance the adoption of decentralized clinical trials, yet companies that undertake this mode of research need to be mindful of some of the challenges that can derail these efforts. Sponsors should keep their computer systems secure, closely adhere to patient privacy laws, as well as follow good clinical practices and adopt flexible uses of technology to ensure data can be collected remotely.   So assert...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday released draft guidance explaining its thought process for rescinding breakthrough therapy designation (BTD) during its evaluation of a drug.   While FDA has long asserted its authority to rescind or withdraw BTDs, the new guidance will add clarity for sponsors as to when the agency might revoke the designation. Since designation was created under the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act in 2012,...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now published four draft guidances spelling out how it will consider real-world data (RWD) in regulatory decision-making, from the use of electronic health records and registries to RWD in non-interventional studies. More guidance documents are planned, including details on study designs that incorporate RWD for external control arms.   External control arms, which use data collected outside of the current trial to provide ...

Drugmakers and clinician organizations praised the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent draft guidance containing recommendations on developing a Race and Ethnicity Diversity Plan to improve enrollment of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in clinical trials. But in public comments, they also called for greater details on the types of data that should be used to assess adequate enrollment of these populations, how these diversity plans should be applied to...

A study conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) found that the agencies are identifying the same types of deficiencies in joint good clinical practice (GCP) inspections with respect to protocol compliance, documentation deviations, and human subject protections.   The paper follows a mutual transatlantic cooperation on GCPs between the regulators that went into effect on 1 September 2009. Under the program, regulators ...

Feature articles during April examined the roles of the regulatory specialist and generalist and the application of regulatory intelligence (RI) in managing the new EU In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices Regulation (IVDR), developing an in-house regulatory database in the oncology setting, and strategic planning. Also included are articles on expedited regulatory pathway options, selecting control groups in pediatric clinical trials, and the role of artificial intelligence...

Draft guidance from the US Food and Drug Administration on reporting medical device and diagnostic shortages for public health emergencies is too broad and potentially could be too resource intensive for manufacturers as well as regulators, representatives from medtech industry groups believe.   In January, the FDA published a draft guidance that outlines when and how the agency wants medtech manufacturers to alert the agency of potential product shortages that happen ...

The International Council for Harmonization (ICH) on Tuesday released a draft ICH E11A guideline that establishes a framework for extrapolating drug development data from adult trials to the pediatric population.   “This new ICH guideline aims to promote international harmonization of methodologies and strategies to incorporate paediatric extrapolation into overall drug development plans and to improve the speed of access to new drugs for paediatric patients, while l...

While a lot of researchers claim they are capturing digital biomarker data, they may in fact be collecting clinical outcomes assessment (COA) data according to some US regulators. To clarify the differences, top US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials have defined digital biomarkers versus other kinds of data in a new article.   According to FDA officials in an article published on 25 March in npj Digital Medicine , a digital biomarker is “a characteristic o...

ICH E10 provides specific guidance on the choice of control groups for clinical trials, but there are additional considerations for choosing a control group for a pediatric trial. In this article, the author looks at different types of control groups and the specific challenges that present when considering the design for a pediatric trial, such as the medical condition being treated, the potential patient population, suitability of comparators, and availability of real-wo...

A number of stakeholders have written to the US Food and Drug Administration about the agency’s recent draft guidance on how digital health technologies (DHT) could be used to conduct clinical trials remotely. Some have concerns about the agency too narrowly defining what products can be used for remote monitoring, while others argue it’s not broad enough. Some are also asking the agency to include smart packaging in the guidance.   In December, the agency published i...