LAS VEGAS – The U.S. FDA has said it is looking to help those interested in developing digital health tools, and that commitment took center stage this week during the Digital Health Summit, part of CES 2020. Amy Abernethy, principal deputy commissioner at the FDA, gave an overview of the agency’s thinking on the topic, providing the perspective of someone who came from outside the regulatory world.

PERTH, Australia – Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration is putting in place a number of opioid reforms to clamp down on the use of opioids to deal with increasing deaths and hospitalizations from the use of those drugs.  

Caesarea, Israel-based Icecure Medical Ltd. has won the FDA’s nod for additional indications for its cryoablation technology, paving the way for use in kidney, liver, ear, nose and throat and new neurology indications. The agency also cleared Icecure’s new Multisense system.

For the first time since Congress opened the door to biosimilars in 2010, the FDA approved nearly as many biosimilars in 2019 as it did new biologics. As the first decade of biosimilars came to a close, the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) approved 10 biosimilars referencing seven blockbuster biologics, bringing the total number of approved biosimilars to 26.

The latest global regulatory news, changes and updates affecting biopharma.

Ear infections are a common occurrence in kids, causing pain, fever and, in worst cases, hearing loss. Yet up to half of all cases are misdiagnosed, due to doctors’ inability to look deep into the middle ear where infections reside. Now, the U.S. FDA has cleared the Tomi Scope, a first-in-class technology from Photonicare Inc., of Champaign, Ill., that allows doctors to not only detect the presence or absence of fluid in the middle ear but characterize the type of fluid they see.