The U.S. FDA’s draft device user fee agreement was months late in arriving on Capitol Hill, a fact which also delayed the public meeting on the draft, an event that finally took place April 19. The meeting kicked off with an acknowledgement by second-time FDA commissioner Robert Califf of the growing role of user fees in FDA finances, but Mark Leahey, president and CEO of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA), said that the quality of FDA reviews was at least as important as the timeliness of those reviews even though the user fee deals include many deadline-based metrics.
With renewed focus on the U.S. Cancer Moonshot, the price of oncology drugs is more than a satellite issue, especially as new drugs launch with ever-increasing prices and other cancer drugs continue to see price hikes.
Deciding not to roll the dice this time, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and its U.S.-based Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. removed themselves April 18 from an ongoing opioid trial in West Virginia by agreeing to a $99 million settlement with the state.
Although broader use of biosimilars in the U.S. would reduce Medicare Part D spending and save beneficiaries nearly $2 million in out-of-pocket costs, plan formularies continue to discourage the use of the more affordable follow-ons, according to a recent report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.
The FDA has granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Inspect IR Systems LLC, of Frisco, Texas, for the company’s namesake test that evaluates the patient’s breath for the presence of volatile organic compounds (VOC) indicative of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The test is expected to increase the volume of testing by only 64,000 per month at the current rate of production, however, making this a technological breakthrough of limited impact on the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FDA’s June 2021 draft guidance for remanufacturing of medical devices wades into a highly complicated area of compliance for third-party servicing organizations that may not be familiar with FDA regulations, but the draft has sparked another set of concerns. Two trade associations said the draft would seem to suggest that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) must disclose confidential trade secrets to give these third parties the information needed to service these devices, a suggestion that both the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA) and the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) said is clearly out of bounds.
The U.S. FDA’s safety and performance-based pathway (SPBP) is intended as a leaner, meaner alternative to the conventional 510(k) pathway that would sidestep some of the presumed problems with the concept of substantial equivalence. The agency recently added four device types to this program, including orthopedic fracture fixation plates.
The FDA has given thumbs up to two clinical studies for a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) system developed by HLT Inc. to treat aortic stenosis among high-risk patients. Those studies will include aortic regurgitation which also occurs when an aortic valve doesn't open and close tightly enough but for which there are few suitable, noninvasive treatments.
It’s been one thing after another for rusfertide from Protagonist Therapeutics Inc. for the past year. Now the U.S. FDA has told the company it wants to rescind the breakthrough designation, a relatively rare occurrence, based on observed malignancies in a follow-up to September’s clinical hold.
Clinicians are still at liberty to use medical products outside the labeled indication for use, but the U.S. FDA believes radiologists may be unaware of the limitations of radiological computer-aided triage and notification (CADt) software for intracranial large-vessel occlusion (LVOs). The agency advised clinicians that these programs are not intended for use as a substitute for radiologist review of images, but instead should be used only to flag suspect images as part of an effort to triage these patients.
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