Rock to the left, hard place to the right: One dilemma of compassionate use
March 13, 2014 – 3:16 pm | By Jennifer Boggs | No comments yet
It also spurs public outrage, as executives of Chimerix Inc. found this week, as they faced a storm of vitriol from patient groups across Facebook and the Twitterverse (#savejosh #SaveJoshHardy) begging the firm to provide its investigational antiviral drug, brincidofovir, on a compassionate use basis to a 7-year-old boy. Chimerix held its ground, refusing to cave to the negative press and open the floodgates for compassionate use patients; instead, the company managed to get a protocol through the FDA for a pilot study in immunocompromised patients, with young Josh Hardy the first subject enrolled Wednesday.
The move put Chimerix back in the public’s good graces. And by running a study, the company can carefully recruit and monitor patients on drug. While that doesn’t preclude the brincindofovir’s development being affected by adverse events or deaths in the study, it does give the company some control. And that’s one of the problems inherent with compassionate use. (There are others, such as cost and accessibility for all, and worries that patients won’t enter clinical trials if compassionate use is available.) The company is providing the drug without having any knowledge as to how it might react to that patient’s disease pathology or severity. But if a patient receiving the drug on compassionate use dies or suffers a serious side effect, do those incidents still have to be reported to the FDA? You bet. Not only are deaths and adverse effects more than likely outcomes given that patients have to be gravely ill and out of options to be considered for compassionate use therapy in the first place, but BioWorld has reported on enough advisory committees and reviewed enough briefing docs over the years for me to know the FDA takes patient deaths seriously, regardless of whether that patient was receiving drug on compassionate use or in an actual clinical trial setting. Bottom line: It’s a tough call for companies to make. No one wants to deny a possible – even if long-shot – treatment to a dying patient. But they have to also consider the risks to the overall development program. Otherwise, an entire patient population could end up being deprived of a potentially life-saving treatment.
Posted in Clinical Trial, compassionate use, FDA
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