U.S. drug prices continue to be in the crosshairs of Congress, with the Senate Judiciary Committee once again sending five bipartisan bills targeting anticompetitive pricing tactics to the full Senate Feb. 9 with do-pass recommendations.
With China taking steps to enact or propose amendments to more than 60 intellectual property (IP)-related laws and regulations over the past few years, drug and device companies doing business in the country need to keep abreast of the changes. Despite China’s efforts, most of the participants in the Feb. 9 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s quarterly China IP webinar indicated in a pre-webinar survey that they have yet to see much of an improvement in China’s enforcement and regulation of IP rights.
Strong data for pegylated interferon lambda, Eiger Biopharmaceuticals Inc.’s experimental COVID-19 treatment, boosted the company stock (NASDAQ:EIGR) 23% on Feb. 9 as the company continues to seek regulatory approval. That approval path is blocked as interferon lambda is not currently approved by the U.S. FDA for any use. In October, the company said it would not submit emergency authorization use request after feedback from the FDA.
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Annovis, Appili, Leo, Neurosense, Santhera, UCB.
The U.S. FDA raised some hackles with its final guidance for clinical decision support (CDS) software, thanks to provisions that some stakeholders argued flew against congressional intent regarding the regulatory status of some device functions. That final guidance is now the target of a petition by the CDS Coalition to withdraw and rewrite the final guidance, arguing that the agency is “doing an end run” around the limitations established by Congress regarding the FDA’s oversight of software as a medical device (SaMD).
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) is launching an investigation into the importation from China of certain thyroid hormone receptor-beta agonists, products containing them and the manufacturing processes being used.
A federal court cut off efforts Feb. 6 to halt a U.S. program allowing prescription drug imports from Canada before the program gets off the ground. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a suit by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and other organizations, saying that they lacked standing because neither they nor their members face “a concrete risk of harm from the inchoate importation program.”
While the new inflation-based rebate on certain Part B drugs may generate billions of dollars in savings for Medicare, implementing the rebate could be more challenging than the U.S. Congress and the Biden administration expected when the Inflation Reduction Act was enacted last August.
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