Europe’s successful experience with regulatory flexibilities during the pandemic provides lessons that can be brought to future modernization of the pharmaceutical regulatory framework, according to a team of industry regulatory experts. Flexibility on variations, language and labeling, change management, and good manufacturing practice (GMP) were all seen as highly valuable in a survey of industry.   Writing in the journal Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science ...

International regulators take a variety of approaches to expedited drug approvals, according to a new opinion piece from leading US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials. Many health authorities take a time-limited approach to granting expedited approvals, while others limit these programs to new molecular entities, according to Gautam Mehta of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and FDA coauthors.   “The expiry periods for conditional and provi...

The US Food and Drug Administration, as part of an end-of-year spate of guidance documents, has issued a draft guidance for sponsors who wish to use digital tech to aid in remote clinical data acquisition.   Digital health technologies (DHTs) stand to benefit clinical investigations in a multitude of ways, but regulatory considerations have to be weighed as the technologies are employed, noted the agency in setting out the background for the draft guidance, issued in l...

Welcome to Regulatory Reconnaissance, your daily regulatory news and intelligence briefing.   In Focus: US More than 1 million Americans were diagnosed with COVID over the long holiday weekend ( NPR ) ( Reuters ) Elizabeth Holmes is found guilty of four counts of fraud ( NYT ) ( POLITICO ) The Epic Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes ( NYT ) Pfizer carries pandemic momentum into 2022, scoring another huge Paxlovid deal with the US ( Fierce ) CDER, CBER Approve Total...

Welcome to 2021’s last issue of This Week at FDA. This week saw a year-end flurry of device classifications; we are also sharing news of three noteworthy device warning letters and a citizen petition response that closes with FDA’s referring a firm to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for anticompetitive practices.    RAPS offices are closed 23 December – 2 January. Regulatory Focus will resume publication on 3 January. From our team to you, our valued readers, best...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recently released a report that reflected on a decade of implementing a framework to better work with doctors, pharmacists, and nurses in the EU.   As of December 2021, there are now 38 eligible organizations working with the agency in a variety of practice areas. The framework is designed for EMA to access a network of independent experts in clinical practice who can advise on real-world experience with drug development, benefit-ris...

  Welcome to Regulatory Reconnaissance, your daily regulatory news and intelligence briefing.   In Focus: US Former FDA commissioners endorse Califf as head of agency, citing urgency of addressing omicron ( WaPo ) Califf goes to Congress ( POLITICO ) Moderna, Amgen among biotech heavyweights pulling out of JPM conference over Covid concerns ( STAT ) US FDA’s Woodcock Sees Clinical Trial Reform Coming, But ‘Not Wholly Optimistic’ ( Pink Sheet ) Pfizer says its Co...

Happy Friday – this week we’re juggling lots of end-of-year activity from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Today and in the next week, look for our contributors to highlight several draft and final guidance documents and to provide analysis and background on industry’s reactions to other guidances whose comment periods have recently closed.   The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) released its fall/winter 2021 regulatory science news update today....

Developers of individualized investigational antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapies for ultra-rare diseases received additional guidance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In two draft documents, the agency has provided new information for sponsor-investigators and for those overseeing manufacture of these so-called “N of 1” therapies for people with severely debilitating or life-threatening genetic disease.   "Progress in individualized medicines provi...

A global regulatory group is mapping out a strategy for regulatory alignment as countries around the world plan their responses in the face of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.   The International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA) met on the first two days of December to discuss a host of regulatory challenges. Thirteen World Health Organization (WHO) and EC officials joined representatives from ICMRA’s 24 health aut...

Welcome to month two of our weekly digest of regulatory news from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other corners of the health care product world. This week saw the expansion of Eli Lilly’s emergency use authorization (EUA) for two of its monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to treat COVID-19 in pediatric patients and the narrow backing of Merck’s oral COVID-19 antiviral molnupiravir by FDA’s Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee. We’re also reading that Robert Calif...

US medical device and in vitro diagnostic sponsors who are using the Food and Drug Administration’s de novo pathway will be able to use the eSTAR filing format at the beginning of 2022. A pilot program for the eSTAR template that kicked off in 2020 began with a template for 510(k) device submissions.   Nine companies participated in that pilot program that trialed the interactive, PDF-based filing format. Use of eSTAR was expanded in September 2020 to include all 5...