FDA’s Wish-List for 2018 Includes Ambitious and Achievable Goals 

FDA commissioner released a list of priorities for this year that could be categorized into two broad areas: encourage domestic manufacturing, and increase the role of real world evidence (RWE) for product approval. To boost domestic manufacturing, FDA plans to focus its attention of new technologies, particularly for biotechnology products and medical devices. FDA will … Read more

Ethics of Placebo-Controlled Studies: Pediatric Study Challenged

A doctor with competing interests complained that a NIH-funded study similar to his earlier trial was unethical because it involved giving placebo to children. This prompted NIH to call an urgent meeting of the DSMB for the placebo-controlled trial and some changes to the trial to address the concerns. However, this case points to some … Read more

Poor Regulation of Antibiotics in India Creates Global Nightmare 

Drug companies openly sell unapproved antibiotic combinations in India creating a terrifying scenario of prevalence of multidrug resistant bacteria creating incurable infections. There have been several reported cases of the multidrug resistant bacteria infecting travelers bringing the infections to other countries worldwide. According to research study published this week in the British Journal of Clinical … Read more

Cell Phone Radiation and Cancer Puts FDA and NTP at Odds; Somewhat

Cell phones emit Radiofrequency Radiations (RFR), a kind of non-ionizing radiations, which have been suspected to causing cancer with frequent use. Last Friday, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) published preliminary results of its two year carcinogenicity study with cell phone radiation that led to a simultaneous news release by FDA trying to play down the … Read more

Some States to Allow Off-Label Promotion of Drugs: Headache for FDA? 

Three states, Mississippi, Missouri and Colorado recently proposed bills to allow off-label promotion of drugs. These states are following on the lead established by Arizona that passed a law last March to allow drug companies to legally promote off-label uses of FDA-approved products (drugs, biologics and medical devices) without any fear of prosecution by the … Read more

FDA Doubles Down on the Least  Burdensome Approach to Approval 

In his response to a GAO report that FDA needs to evaluate appropriate implementation of the least burdensome requirements of the 21st Century Cures Act, the FDA Commissioner announced that FDA has already trained more than 90 percent of its reviewers in CDRH in least burdensome requirements for new medical device approval decisions, and that … Read more

New FDA Rule for Labeling Requirements for Prescription Drugs

FDA is working on new rules to require a simplified one-page Medication Guide for prescription drugs to supplement the longer package inserts that usually accompany a drug to make it easier for the patients to understand their medication. Earlier this week FDA announced its major policy goals for this year and it contains several things … Read more

How to Meet FDA: New Guidance Formalizes Well Know Common Sense 

FDA released a new guidance to describe the current process for arranging meetings with the review divisions in CDER ad CBER combining and simplifying information from previous guidance documents, updating some critical timelines and retiring the old defunct guidance documents on the same topic. In the last decade, FDA’s management carried out a major publicity … Read more

The Most Common FDA Audit Findings From 2017 

Last year FDA conducted 17,487 audits worldwide, and issued 5045 FDA 483s, meaning that about 30% of the audits lead to non-compliance in more than one regulated area. There were 498 Warning Letters issues during the same time showing that 1 in 10 audits found repeat violations that required more serious enforcement action by FDA. … Read more