Benefit-risk (BR) assessment, a central part of regulatory decision making, has become increasingly structured in response to the need for consistency and transparency, and in alignment with the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) 2021 draft BR guidance. Early planning and established processes are critical to successful execution. To help regulatory affairs professionals guide clinical development teams in planning and conducting patient-focused structured BR assess...

India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) implemented the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules in 2019 to expedite the drug development and approval processes. This article provides an overview of those processes; explains the rule-specific terminology, such as the definitions of “drug” and “new drug” under Indian law; and outlines strategies for speeding up the approval processes and optimizing registration of prescription medicines in India.   Keywo...

TGA releases guide to classifying active medical devices by risk   New guidance from Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on the risk classification of active medical devices covers software-based products and other medical devices that act by converting energy. Examples of covered devices include pacemakers and phototherapy devices.   The EU defined the term “active medical device” in its Medical Device Regulation (MDR). TGA, which follows the EU w...

Two bipartisan bills aimed at clarifying what constitutes a new chemical entity (NCE) and providing education on biosimilars to consumers and physicians were signed into law by President Joe Biden on Friday.   The first bill, S. 415 , also known as the Ensuring Innovation Act , amends the Federal Food, Drug, Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) to replace the definition of an active ingredient with the active moiety definition used by FDA for the purposes of determining whether...

A weekly update on new drug approvals and indications from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).   New approvals Fintepla gets the go-ahead for Dravet syndrome Zogenix’s Fintepla (fenfluramine) has been approved for the treatment of seizures associated with Dravet syndrome in patients aged 2 years or older. The syndrome is a rare, life-threatening form of epilepsy.   The approval was based on findings from two clinical studies in 202 participants aged ...

This article discusses the application of master files to the new dietary ingredient notification process to protect intellectual property of ingredient manufacturers and incentivize submission of NDI notifications. The author describes an NDI master file model, based on the US drug master file, as a proposal for consideration by the US Food and Drug Administration.   Introduction Innovation grows industries, and it is no different for the dietary supplement industry...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set an all-time record for new drug approvals in 2018 with 59 novel drugs and biologics approved by the agency's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER).   The number of new molecular entities (NMEs) and biologics approved by CDER surpassed the agency's previous record of 53 approvals in 1996 and is a significant jump over the 46 new drugs approved in 2017 . Those figures do not include products approved by FDA's Center...

The number of new molecular entities (NMEs) approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017 (46 so far, though that number does not include the high-profile CAR-T and gene therapies approved this year) has now topped the all-time high of NMEs approved in any year except 1996. But the record number of approvals comes as experts, including CDER Director Janet Woodcock, have expressed reservations about tracking NME approvals like a horse race, or compari...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday announced it has cleared a next-generation sequencing (NGS) test developed by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) that can detect 468 unique gene mutations and other molecular biomarkers in a patient's tumor. The test, referred to as MSK-IMPACT (Integrated Mutation Profiling of Actionable Cancer Targets), was already approved for use with samples from patients in New York by the New York State Department of ...

This article discusses FDA's publication of its revised draft of Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues: Guidance for Industry (2016 Draft Guidance) and the implications regarding the lack of finalization in the year following its publication. The authors make suggestions regarding what companies may begin doing prior to and in anticipation of eventual finalization. Introduction Regarding how dietary supplements should be regulate...

Pharmaceutical regulations vary widely in different countries, though new research published Friday in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery offers comparisons in terms of the regulators’ budgets, staff, new drug approvals and timelines for approvals. Of the regulators in the more established major pharmaceutical markets (the authors from the European Center of Pharmaceutical Medicine and Novo Nordisk point to the US, Europe and Japan as being the regulators in such mark...

The European Commission on Tuesday said it will assess the 19 offers from EU cities to host the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) headquarters as it moves from London's Canary Wharf following Britain's decision to leave the EU. The Commission's assessment will be published online 30 September 2017, then the European Council will have a political discussion based on the assessment at the General Affairs Council (Article 50 format) in October 2017. The vote will cons...