HONG KONG – South Korea’s Osang Healthcare Co. Ltd. became the first Korean company to receive the U.S. FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) for its COVID-19 test kit. In a letter dated April 18, 2020, the FDA informed Osang of its authorization for the company’s Genefinder COVID-19 Plus Realamp Kit.
With a coronavirus task force briefing unfolding at the White House late on April 17, an FDA eager to show its ongoing commitment to tackling other disease amid the pandemic, granted accelerated approval to Incyte Corp.'s Pemazyre (pemigatinib), the first treatment approved for adults with certain types of previously treated, advanced cholangiocarcinoma.
Looking ahead to COVID-19 strategies, Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), said vaccine studies might be done not in clinics but in the streets. “By definition, we’re probably not going to be able to vaccinate everyone simultaneously,” he noted.
As expected – and well ahead of the Aug. 20 PDUFA date – Bothell, Wash-based Seattle Genetics Inc. (Seagen) won FDA clearance for the oral small-molecule breast cancer therapy tucatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor branded Tukysa.
Case Western Reserve University spinout Synapse Biomedical Inc. has received emergency use authorization from the U.S. FDA for its Transaeris diaphragm pacing system (DPS) device to prevent and treat ventilator-induced diaphragm dysfunction (VIDD).
HONG KONG – South Korean biopharmaceutical company Kolon Tissuegene Inc. got a new lease on life as the U.S. FDA lifted the hold on the phase III trial for its lead candidate, Invossa-K (Invossa), for the treatment of osteoarthritis.
The FDA approved Urogen Pharma Ltd.’s mitomycin gel, an orphan drug branded Jelmyto, on April 15, offering patients the first non-surgical option for low-grade upper tract urothelial cancer (LG-UTUC) and granting the Princeton, N.J.-based company with its first marketed product.
An April 15 U.S. FDA stakeholder call revisited several themes of interest in connection with diagnostics for the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Tim Stenzel, director of the agency’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, said that while the agency has not yet authorized a home sample collection kit, “we do think it’s going to happen very soon.”
Nearly 40 years on, the generic drug market is often lauded as an American success story. But a closer inspection reveals such back-patting ignores the potential for serious public health risks caused by ongoing shortages in the generic drug supply. It also ignores quality issues and lingering physician and patient doubts about generics, especially those made in other countries.
The collection of nasal and throat swab samples to detect the presence or absence of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has proven problematic on a few fronts, particularly in the U.S. The swabs themselves often have become scarce and difficult to obtain, while health care workers are routinely risking their own health commonly in the absence of proper protective equipment. In addition, sampling difficulties have largely been blamed for a very high false negative rate that could be as much as 25%.
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