As a new Congressional term kicks off, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as the Trump administration, are pushing policies to lower prescription drug prices.   On Wednesday, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced a bill, dubbed the Safe and Affordable Drugs from Canada Act of 2019, that would allow for Americans to import drugs from Canada. The bill mirrors the bill by the same name championed by the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ...

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 European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Monday released recommendations from its European network of pediatric research (Enpr)-EMA working group on opportunities during various stages of development to consult with pediatric research groups.   “Enpr-EMA suggests that all companies consider using these opportunities in a spirit of shared learning about the best way to collaborate during [pediatric investigation plan] planning,” EMA writes, noting that companies can benef...

How a generic drug is priced may be the difference between whether it experiences a shortage or not, a new study published in Value in Health found. The study of commonly used outpatient generic drugs from 2008 to 2014 found that the prevalence of shortages decreased from a peak in 2011-2012 to less than 4% of the overall sample by the end of 2014. Generic drug prices “were strongly predictive of drug shortages,” the researchers found. But competition and market si...

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced Friday that it has found that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not always ensure that all information is consistently recorded and evaluated when making orphan drug designation determinations. The missing of these critical steps by the agency in some cases means that FDA reviewers do not fully understand the context of a drug’s intended use for the rare disease, GAO said. “The Commissioner of FDA shou...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is not just seeing an increase in drug shortages but also a spike in the intensity and duration of shortages, according to agency presentations at an FDA/Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy event on Tuesday. Matthew Rosenberg, an economics staffer at FDA, looked at drug shortages in terms of occurrence, duration, intensity and public health impact. Combining data from FDA archives and IQVIA national sales database, Rosenbe...

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) researchers are working to develop a new informatics model to reduce the reliance on dogs to conduct studies in animal drug development.   The agency’s new study, which was proposed on Friday, is intended to aid animal drug developers in conducting certain research without the need for product testing on dogs.   Animal drug developers would be able to use the new model as a mechanism for comparing blood levels of certain oral...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday finalized guidance for drugmakers on identifying and evaluating early signals that could indicate whether a drug might have adverse effects on the testes and when clinical trials are necessary to assess those risks.   Specifically, the 14-page guidance lays out recommendations for identifying nonclinical signals that suggest risk of testicular toxicity; conducting nonclinical assessments to further evaluate the ris...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday released its priorities for addressing compounded drugs in 2018 after years of developing policies to improve its oversight. Background In recent years, FDA has worked to update its policies on compounded drugs in response to a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak linked to the New England Compounding Center that led to at least 60 deaths and new requirements brought on by the Drug Quality and Security Act (DQSA) of 201...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has come a long way when it comes to locally acting orally inhaled and nasal drug products (OINDPs) and in the next five years of generic drug user fees, the agency is looking at further progress on some unique challenges, according to a regulatory science report on OINDPs. Background FDA’s Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) explained how the performance of OINDPs has been notoriously difficult to characterize because of a lac...

The House Energy & Commerce (E&C) Committee on Wednesday released an 80-page report outlining issues and recommendations to improve the 340B drug pricing program, which helps reduce the prices of certain drugs for participating hospitals, health centers and other entities that provide care for vulnerable patients. The 80-page report follows an October House E&C hearing in which hospital executives pushed back on the idea that the 340B program should be narrowed o...

2017 was a year of firsts for the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), with initial approvals in at least five medical conditions and other firsts that might not end up on the final scorecard, like the first biosimilar cancer treatment or the first immediate-release opioid with abuse-deterrent properties. And though the total 46 approvals is the second-highest number of approvals by CDER ever, according to the CDER ...