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The October 3, 2019 Executive Order 13890 (“EO 13890”), entitled “Executive Order on Protecting and Improving Medicare for our Nation’s Seniors,” directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “propose regulatory and sub-regulatory changes to the Medicare program to encourage innovation for patients.”  EO 13890 explicitly requests that the Secretary make coverage…

On April 28, 2015, the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized three guidances for industry on developing biosimilar drugs. The guidances, which follow the FDA’s first approval of a biosimilar drug in March, are intended to clarify both scientific and regulatory considerations for a broad range of stakeholders, including drug companies, in manufacturing biosimilars.…

As discussed on our Life Sciences Legal Update blog, the FDA has released draft guidance clarifying its acceptance of medical device clinical data from studies conducted outside of the United States. The draft guidance highlights special considerations that apply when using foreign clinical data, including applicability to populations within the US, and provides recommendations…

CMS and FDA are establishing an interagency task force to reinforce their collaboration regarding the oversight of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs), which are tests intended for clinical use and designed, manufactured, and used within a single lab. According to an FDA blog post, the goals of the FDA/CMS task force include: (1) identifying areas of similarity…

On April 1, 2015, the FDA is hosting a workshop entitled “Clinical Outcomes Assessment Development and Implementation: Opportunities and Challenges.” The workshop will update the public on ongoing efforts in the use of clinical outcome assessments (COAs), and plan for the future of COA development and utilization in drug development programs. The workshop will also…

This post was written by Kevin M. Madagan.

Time to pop the bubbly a little early! FDA announced today that the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) deadline of January 1, 2015 for product tracing (i.e., the new federal pedigree standards) will not be enforced until May 1, 2015. This means manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and repackagers…

On September 30, 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the availability of two draft guidances intended to implement a new regulatory oversight framework for LDTs, which are defined by the FDA as “a type of in vitro diagnostic test that is designed, manufactured and used within a single laboratory” and which are intended for clinical use. Release of the documents follows on the heels of FDA’s notification to Congress in late July of its intent to issue draft guidance in this area. The first draft guidance, “Framework for Regulatory Oversight of Laboratory Developed Tests (LDTs)” (Framework Guidance), describes a risk-based framework for addressing the regulatory oversight of LDTs. The Framework Guidance also describes FDA’s priorities for enforcing pre- and post-market requirements for LDTs, and the process by which FDA intends to phase in enforcement of FDA regulatory requirements for LDTs over time. The second draft guidance, “FDA Notification and Medical Device Reporting for Laboratory Developed Tests (LDTs)” (Notification and Reporting Guidance), describes the process for clinical laboratories to notify FDA of the LDTs they manufacture as well as the Medical Device Reporting (MDR) requirements for clinical laboratories that manufacture LDTs. Both draft guidances reflect the FDA’s effort to take steps to encourage the advancement of personalized medicine by helping to ensure the reliability of certain diagnostic tests. The guidances are neither final nor in effect at this time. 

The following is an overview of the specific issues addressed in the draft guidances:Continue Reading FDA Releases Two Draft Guidance Documents on Proposed Laboratory Developed Test (LDT) Regulatory Oversight

Yesterday the FDA issued final guidance entitled “Content of Premarket Submissions for Management of Cybersecurity in Medical Devices,” which includes recommendations for medical device manufacturers on cybersecurity management and information that should be included in a pre-market submission. The recommendations are intended to supplement previous FDA guidances, “Guidance for the Content of Premarket…

Earlier this summer, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a draft 42-page “Informed Consent Information Sheet” that provides guidance for institutional review boards (IRBs), clinical investigators, and clinical trial sponsors on complying with the Agency’s informed consent regulations. Once finalized, the draft guidance will supersede FDA’s previous Information Sheet on this topic, “A Guide to Informed Consent,” which was last updated over 15 years ago, in 1998.  The guidance, which is a compilation of FDA’s regulations and past guidances on informed consent, also reflects the Agency’s coordinated efforts with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to facilitate consistency across informed consent requirements and policies among federal government agencies.

Broadly, the new guidance indicates FDA policy shifting towards enhanced informed consent processes. More narrowly, the draft guidance explains the various and often caveated elements of informed consent (including providing patients with a description of the trial, its risks, benefits, alternative treatments, confidentiality and compensation in the event of injury), depicts the detailed responsibilities of IRBs, clinical investigators and sponsors of clinical trials (including compliance with the process, elements and documentation of informed consent), and provides examples of recommended language to assist industry parties in complying with FDA’s informed consent regulations. FDA accomplishes this task by clarifying some aspects of existing guidance and creating additional guidance in new areas.

The following provides an overview of some of the draft guidance’s notable new and revised provisions.Continue Reading FDA Seeks Comments to Updated Guidance on Informed Consent in Clinical Trials

On September 5, 2014, the FDA is holding a public meeting at the Washington Plaza Hotel, in Washington DC, to discuss current scientific and regulatory approaches to biomarker development, acceptance, and utility in the development of therapeutic products (e.g., drugs and biologics). Specifically, FDA will focus on (1) identifying challenges for biomarker applications in early-…

In a new draft guidance document, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it does not intend to enforce compliance with general regulatory controls that apply to Medical Device Data Systems (MDDS), medical image storage devices and medical image communications devices. MDDS refers to hardware and software that transfers, stores, converts format and…

The FDA released two draft social media guidance documents last week, describing how manufacturers, packers and distributors of prescription drugs and medical devices may: (1) communicate both benefit and risk information on Internet/social media platforms with character space limitations, and (2) correct independent third-party misinformation about a firm’s products.  For details, see Reed Smith’s Client…

This post was written by Jillian W. Riley. On June 6, 2014, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a draft guidance addressing the distribution of new risk information to health care providers (HCPs) and health care entities (HCEs). The draft guidance defines “new risk information” as “information that becomes available after a drug is marketed that rebuts or mitigates information about a risk already identified in the approved labeling or otherwise refines risk information in the approved labeling in a way that does not indicate great seriousness of the risk.” The draft guidance is not intended to address risk information that is newly identified, but that which was not available at the time FDA approved the labeling. Acknowledging the evolving nature of a drug’s safety profile, the draft guidance is aimed at helping sponsors better communicate “new risk information” in order to allow HCPs and HCEs make the best decision for each patient.
Continue Reading FDA Issues Draft Guidance on Communicating New Risk Information about an Approved Drug Product – Comment Opportunity

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), additive manufacturing, also known as 3-D printing, is entering mainstream use in medical devices, both as an alternative device production method for traditional components and as a method to create patient-matched devices. FDA has begun to receive submissions using additive manufacturing for medical devices, and the agency…

This post was written by Jillian W. Riley.

Earlier this week, FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) published two separate draft guidance documents to advance the dual goals of FDA and industry to provide pathways for medical devices to reach the market quickly while ensuring the safety and efficacy of the product.

The…

This post was also written by Jillian W. Riley.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just announced that it will hold a public hearing March 25 and 26, 2014 to obtain input on the Agency’s current process for reviewing over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. This is a significant advancement in FDA’s long-standing plan to overhaul the OTC drug system. According to the announcement, the Agency’s OTC drug review “needs a critical examination at this juncture to examine whether and how to modernize its processes and regulatory framework.”

Teeing up the importance of the public hearing, Dr. Janet Woodcock, the Director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), informed the Wall Street Journal that the Agency was “looking for creative ideas about how to improve the process.”1 According to Dr. Woodcock, “The current system isn’t working well for the public or for us.”  Additional details are available after the jump.Continue Reading FDA to Overhaul an OTC System That “Isn’t Working”