Clinical trials for oncology products have come to literal standstill due to the pandemic and it seems it would be at least 2-5 years before things go back to pre-pandemic levels. Not only that, the pandemic has also severely curtailed the fund-raising for companies and non-profit organizations in the oncology space, some by as much … Read more
Placebo-controlled studies are the global gold standard to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of new drugs. However, can placebo make a new product look better than it actually is by causing adverse effects not otherwise seen or inducing other artifacts that make the active drug look better? An interesting commentary in the Journal of American … Read more
In a stinging rebuke of their policy to withhold critical information about Plavix from FDA and the public, a judge in Hawaii fined BMS and Sanofi $834 million. Although the judge found the companies guilty of deceptive marketing, the ruling document describes a detailed timeline of information available to the company which could signal additional … Read more
Only 16% of the times when a company gets a Refuse to File (RTF) notification, it tells the public about it, and even then, only 5% of the times, the company accurately discloses the reasons for the refusal, FDA reports. Companies obviously want to control the negative information about their applications and FDA want to … Read more
Last week after FDA persuaded its oncology drug advisory committee to soundly reject a new drug approval application due to it being based on clinical data exclusively from China, some may have been given the impression that FDA no longer accepts clinical data from China for market approval in the US. It is far from … Read more
The FDA would soon have a new commissioner and among several leading contenders for the position is the 37-year veteran of FDA, Dr. Janet Woodcock. Like others, we speculate if this is the year, she finally becomes the FDA commissioner. This has been a good year for experienced people who outperformed others in highly competitive … Read more
On 27 January, the European Parliament adopted a legislative measure that would require any company doing business in Europe to assure that its entire supply chain is devoid of human rights and environmental abuses. This law would likely impact the pharmaceutical supply chains hard as they depends heavily on vendors in countries with suspected non-compliance … Read more
Apparently, FDA has been getting calls from consumers asking about where to get the Covid vaccines leading it to release the public announcement that it does not control distribution of vaccines, only their approval. It is obvious to the regulated industry, but the public has a different perception of the FDA, in that FDA is … Read more
It is no secret that FDA stopped all GMP inspections in March of last year due to the pandemic and then resumed highly curtailed risk-based prioritized domestic audits in the Fall. All through FDA used alternate ways to verify GMP compliance for US and foreign manufacturers. But the GAO does not believe it is acceptable … Read more
A review of Tweets from the winter season of 2019-2020 originating in Europe show that there was a jump in tweets about cases of pneumonia and unexplained illness across several European countries. Now we know that those were the early COVID-19 cases. Another review of social media messages originating around the same time in China … Read more
