In a new report from the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), concerns about global inequities accessing diagnostics and medicines for COVID-19 reveal that there are varied and divergent opinions on whether the intellectual property (IP) protections that support the development of new medicines may also act as a barrier to access, particularly in developing countries. In December 2022, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai asked the USITC to respond and identify significant data and information gaps.
The European Commission (EC) has ordered Illumina Inc. to sell Grail Inc. after it closed the acquisition without approval from EU regulators. The EC said that if Illumina fails to comply with the order, the company faces fines of up to 5% of its daily aggregate revenue or up to 10% of its annual worldwide revenue.
Springboarding off the success of its AI-based imaging software for cancer detection, the deep learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) company Lunit Inc. has another AI software, called the Lunit Scope, up its sleeve for which it hopes to gain U.S. FDA approval by 2025.
The first special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger announced in 2023 has fallen apart. Aprinoia Therapeutics Inc. and Ross Acquisition Corp. II mutually agreed to call off the merger that had been valued at $280 million. The failed deal is part of a larger trend that has gained momentum in the past year as a struggling economy and tighter U.S. SEC restrictions dampened SPAC deals.
A recent bipartisan request for funding of a study on replacing U.S. drug patents with cash prizes is just one more symptom of a larger global malady that makes patents the scapegoat for bigger problems that have nothing to do with intellectual property (IP), David Kappos, board co-chair of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP), told BioWorld.
Responding to medical advances and new standards of care in Alzheimer’s, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing to end its 10-year-old coverage with evidence development policy that has limited Medicare reimbursement of amyloid PET scans to once in a lifetime for beneficiaries – and then only when they’re used in a CMS-approved trial.
At the 2023 Annual Congress of the European Academy of Neurology, Mary Reilly described the relationship between bench and bedside as “a continuous circle of translation,” with each cycle beginning with patients and their needs.
The June 14 hearing of the House Appropriations Committee was focused largely on spending levels for the Department of Agriculture, but there was also some concern over the proposed spending levels for the FDA. One of the more conspicuous features of the legislative report is the recommendation that the FDA finalize guidance or rulemaking for risk-based regulation of lab-developed tests (LDTs), a clear departure from the stance taken by Congress for a number of years.
Even though COVID-19 is transitioning from pandemic to endemic across the world, it will remain first in mind as U.S. lawmakers look to reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) this year to ensure the country is better prepared for future threats. With a Sept. 30 deadline for reauthorizing PAHPA, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has its work cut out for it. But it won’t be starting from scratch. In opening a May 4 hearing on the reauthorization, HELP Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the committee would build on the efforts started last year under then-Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and now-retired Ranking Member Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
After receiving a U.S. FDA complete response letter nearly two years ago, Cyclopharm Ltd. said the agency has accepted its response and reset the clock for the NDA review of its Technegas combination product for pulmonary embolisms, with a new PDUFA date set for Sept. 29.
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