A mere 26 months after the first patient was enrolled in its pivotal phase II study and about three months ahead of its PDUFA date, the FDA granted accelerated approval for Padcev (enfortumab vedotin-ejfv) to treat adults with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who have previously received a PD-1/L1 inhibitor and a platinum-containing chemotherapy before (neoadjuvant) or after (adjuvant) surgery or in a locally advanced or metastatic setting.
The FDA took concrete steps Wednesday in mapping out import routes for prescription drugs by issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking and a draft guidance. If finalized, the proposed rule, for the first time, would implement a 20-year-old provision of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act that gives the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary the authority to authorize the import of certain small molecule drugs from Canada. However, the proposal is getting pushback from Canada.
The FDA’s proposed rule would, for the first time, implement Section 804 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act (FDCA), which allows certain small-molecule drugs approved in Canada to enter the U.S. market – if the Health and Human Services secretary certifies that the drugs would pose no additional risk to public health and safety and that they would result in a significant reduction in cost.
The U.S. Senate voted 72-18 to confirm Stephen Hahn as the commissioner of the FDA, providing the agency with another commissioner with a deep background in oncology. Hahn succeeds Scott Gottlieb, who stepped down from the post in April and returned to the American Enterprise Institute.
With today’s 18-5 vote in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) to send Stephen Hahn’s nomination to the full U.S. Senate, the oncologist who currently serves as chief medical officer at the MD Anderson Cancer Center is just a step away from being confirmed as the next FDA commissioner.
Commissioner of the FDA for five years starting in 1984, Frank Young relished his position “at the vortex of controversy” as he sought to deal with the AIDS crisis and public furor over drug tampering, said his son, Jonathan Young, co-founder and chief operating officer of South San Francisco-based Akero Therapeutics Inc. Post-FDA, Frank Young would help grapple with the opioid epidemic as well – a scourge that began with the passage of the Compassionate Pain Relief Act (CPRA), passed the year he was appointed. Young, 88, died Nov. 24 of B-cell lymphoma.
How much Senate Democrats oppose President Donald Trump's new nominee to take over the reins of the FDA could depend on whom they dislike or distrust more Stephen Hahn, the nominee, or Brett Giroir, who just became the new acting FDA commissioner.
Glaxosmithkline plc has won FDA approval to market Nucala (mepolizumab) for use in children as young as 6 with severe eosinophilic asthma (EA). The therapy already had FDA approval as an add-on maintenance treatment for kids with the same condition ages 12 and older. Approval of the sBLA, submitted last November, catches the U.S. market up to the EU, where Nucala has been approved as an add-on treatment for children ages 6 to 17 since August 2018.
It's been a busy September for Ardelyx Inc. so far. Less than two weeks after the Fremont, Calif-based company reported promising pivotal data for tenapanor in chronic kidney disease patients with hyperphosphatemia, the sodium hydrogen exchanger 2 (NHE3) inhibitor won FDA approval for use in irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C).
DUBLIN – Shares in Pharnext SA plunged by more than 40% Friday on news that the FDA requires the company to undertake a second phase III trial of its Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A (CMT1A) therapy PXT-3003.