Fully Electronic 510k Applications are Coming Soon  

The 510k applications are one of the very few regulatory applications that are still submitted as fully or partially paper documents that must be mailed to the FDA offices rather than uploaded to the Electronic Submission Gateway (ESG). This week FDA released a guidance describing its process to transition to electronic 510k applications. The process … Read more

FDA’s Publication Highlights How to Use/Not Use Precedent Information

In almost 2 out of 5 cases where the efficacy data submitted in support of a market approval application was borderline (i.e., not clearly conclusive), FDA used its discretion to approve products, citing no clear public reasoning for its decision. Many times, it was done differently than FDA’s own previous decisions about similar applications. The … Read more

Biodistribution Studies for Genetic Therapy Products Explained by FDA 

Biodistribution studies are needed for gene therapy products usually early on for better interpretation of the pharmacological and toxicological effects of the product, but these can be conducted under non-GLP conditions and use animal tissues specimens combined over multiple non-clinical studies. The new ICH guidance endorsed by the FDA this week provides several commonsense measures … Read more

FDA Describes the Process to Develop New Antimicrobial Agents for Food  

In an updated guidance document on developing new anti-microbial agents for use in food products, FDA listed the various common questions from developers of such agents with detailed answers to meet regulatory expectations. Emphasis is placed to defining the minimum level of an agent necessary to accomplish the intended action. Anti-microbial agents are considered food … Read more

Is It a Drug, Food, or a Medical Food? FDA’s Clarifies Regulatory Semantics

You cannot claim your product is food while doing clinical trials that seem to make drug-like claims. An FDA Warning Letter to a microbiome company highlights the regulatory semantics regarding product designations and related regulatory obligations. Based on the endpoints selected for its clinical trials, Kaleido Biosciences Inc (KBI) was told by FDA that its … Read more

FDA: No Need to Re-Monitor Remote Clinical Trials

Since the beginning of the pandemic, many clinical trials switched from conventional monitoring to remote monitoring for obvious reasons. Now that the pandemic related restrictions are easing, there is no need to re-monitor sites which had been remotely monitored according to the FDA. Remote monitoring or centralized monitoring has been a permitted format for monitoring … Read more