Pharma groups are calling on Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) to reconsider its current drug pricing policies that include annual price cuts on innovative drugs.
As expected, the serotonin-dopamine modulator Rexulti (brexpiprazole) from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and H. Lundbeck A/S for agitation in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia, found favor April 14 at the joint meeting of the U.S. FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (adcom) and the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee.
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: 2seventy, Abbvie, Affamed, Bristol Myers Squibb, Candel, Hanchorbio, Intelgenx, Lundbeck, Novo Nordisk, Otsuka.
Providing a much-needed lift to struggling Gamida Cell Ltd., the U.S. FDA has approved the firm’s advanced cell therapy Omisirge (omidubicel-onlv) to reduce the risk of infection in patients with hematologic malignancies aged 12 years and older who are scheduled to have umbilical cord blood transplantation.
The U.S. FDA has cleared Aroa Biosurgery Ltd.’s 510(k) for its Enivo pump and catheter, which are key components of the company’s new Enivo tissue apposition platform. The device applies negative pressure to a surgical site, helping to reduce fluid accumulation following surgery. It has been cleared for use in removing surgical and bodily fluids from a closed wound for hematoma and seroma prophylaxis following plastic surgery or other general surgeries where large flaps are formed.
Medicare coverage of medical devices in the U.S. sometimes is limited to a coverage with evidence development (CED) study, a process that may soon become more stringent. A recent advisory hearing on the CED process suggests that significant changes may be in the making, including a requirement that CED studies more closely reflect the demographic diversity of Medicare beneficiaries at large, a mandate that may force device makers to apply more resources to ensure that CED study enrollments fulfill that mandate.
After issuing three prior complete response letters, the U.S. FDA finally granted approval via the 505(b)(2) NDA pathway to Intelgenx Corp.’s Rizafilm Versafilm to treat acute migraine.
Despite concerns about a limited dataset to study, the urgent need to treat one of the toughest and most deadly infections propelled a U.S. FDA advisory committee to unanimously support the NDA for Entasis Therapeutics Inc.’s sulbactam-durlobactam (Sul-Dur). Sul-Dur, an injectable combination of beta-lactam antibiotic and beta-lactamase inhibitor for treating adults with hospital‐acquired bacterial pneumonia and ventilator‐associated bacterial pneumonia caused by susceptible strains of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infections, has a May 29 PDUFA date.
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Alvotech, Eli Lilly, Horizon, Ips, Minghui, Nicox, NS, Ocumension, Pfizer, Soligenix.
The U.S. FDA has finalized a guidance for class II devices for treatment of peripheral artery disease that excludes drug-coated balloons (DCBs), which are regulated as class III devices. One of the issues the med-tech industry may have with the guidance is that it fails to acknowledge that a device accessory is in some instances exempt from the requirements of the 510(k) program even though the agency has a policy specific to that consideration.