This article compares real-world evidence (RWE) and postmarket surveillance (PMS) data collected outside of a randomized, controlled, clinical trial. Real-world data (RWD) include individual patient data points such as complaints and anecdotal findings. The recent explosion in RWD collection has led to new challenges in RWD evaluation globally. Solutions are rapidly evolving to analyze these relatively random data points for scientifically valid purposes. This article disc...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) this week issued a question-and-answer guidance to address sponsors’ questions on its pilot testing the review of raw clinical trial data for marketing authorization applications (MAAs) and post-authorization applications.   EMA issued an updated guidance on the pilot in October. (RELATED: EMA to explore reviewing raw data from clinical trials in applications , Regulatory Focus 12 July 2022)   The purpose of the pilot is to ...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Pharmaceutical Quality (OPQ) reported that progress has been made over the past year in advancing its quality management maturity initiative and in its quality assessment review process in its 2022 annual report.   The report also describes progress made in other areas under OPQ’s remit. The office’s previous two reports focused largely on its COVID-19 response. (RELATED:  FDA’s OPQ reports on drug quality efforts ...

The FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) have issued draft guidance describing sponsors can leverage external controls, such as use data from registries and electronic health records, in lieu of data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of new drugs and biologics.   The draft guidance also describes how sponsors can communicate with FDA on using dat...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) should brief pilot participants ahead of the actual assessments and use a simplified rubric for scoring or rating a manufacturers quality management maturity (QMM) program. These were some of the lessons learned as the agency develops a future rating program for evaluating manufacturers on drug quality, according to results reported in a 10 January article published in The AAPS Journal .   These pilots “afforded FDA the opp...

Welcome to the December issue of RF Quarterly in which global regulatory experts write about the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in regulatory practice, with a focus on global change management of AI-based medical devices, AI in regulatory intelligence knowledge management, synthetic data and the innovation, assessment, and regulation of AI medical devices, and digital transformation.   We thank the authors for their generosity in sharing their knowledge and exper...

Synthetic data are artificial data that mimic the properties of, and relationships in, real data. They show promise for facilitating data access, validation, and benchmarking, addressing missing data and under-sampling, sample boosting, and the creation of control arms in clinical trials. The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is using its current research into the development of high-fidelity synthetic data to develop its regulatory position on ...

This article outlines the standardization work on artificial intelligence (AI) being carried out in the joint International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42. 1 The SC 42 committee develops international standards that cover both technology capability and nontechnical requirements, such as business, regulatory and policy requirements, and application domain needs, as well as ethical an...

In its simplest form, strategy can be considered bringing a new product to market, but it touches every product development lifecycle aspect and can ensure market sustainability. A limited or inadequate strategy can challenge global expansion, thus emphasizing the importance of a well-designed and executed regulatory strategy. This article identifies the requirements for developing a strategy for a drug development plan, as well as postmarketing strategy, with some global ...

The five process groups of a process-based approach to project management are: Initiate, Plan, Execute, Monitor and Control, and Close, according to PMBOK. This article presents opportunities for using a project management framework when strategizing for CMC regulatory submission projects. The authors discuss PMBOK nomenclature, project performance domains, project constraints, process groups, examples of scenarios that may be encountered during a submission project, and t...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) draft guidance on risk management plans (RMPs) has overstepped the agency’s statutory bounds in requiring manufacturers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) as well as prescription drug manufacturers to submit risk management plans (RMPs) to avert drug shortages.   This requirement could impose the very drug shortages it is designed to prevent, instead of just targeting those products at risk of drug shortage, pharmace...

The FDA’s Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR) proposal, paired with the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 13485:2016, is expected to deliver cost savings to medtech organizations that adhere to both requirements. This article covers the differences between QMSR, ISO 13485:2016, and the Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) so leaders can prepare for the upcoming changes.    Keywords – MDSAP, quality management, quality system regulat...