The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is still considering a drastic overhaul of the 2002 medical device regulatory framework, but may have sent a signal that its new framework won’t deviate too far from established regulatory approaches.

China will continue to ramp up volume-based procurement (VBP) policies that bring down drug and device prices for public hospitals with volume. Governmental agencies at the local and national levels coordinate drug prices via government-organized procurement programs that include VBP and pricing negotiations for inclusion on the National Reimbursable Drug List.

A lot of eyes are on the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference taking place in Geneva June 12-15, as member countries try to reach a consensus on a proposal that would allow certain members to waive intellectual property (IP) rights on COVID-19 vaccines for at least three to five years.

Everest Medicines Ltd. has picked up its first marketing approval in China for Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan), a medicine licensed from Gilead Sciences Inc. It was approved to treat adults with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who have received two or more prior systemic therapies, at least one of them for metastatic disease.

China has granted a green light for Glaxosmithkline plc’s human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, Cervarix, for girls ages 9 to 14. The HPV bivalent vaccine is used against types 16 and 18 in a two-dose course to prevent cervical cancer. It’s the first imported two-dose HPV vaccine for the age group to be approved in China, the company said. A three-dose schedule of Cervarix won Chinese approval in July 2016 for girls and women ages 9 to 25. To date, the two-dose regimen has been approved in about 100 global markets.

China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) released a new draft amendment to its Drug Administration Law (DAL) that introduces some important changes to the regulatory framework and is aimed at codifying initiatives implemented in the current DAL, such as patent linkage and regulatory data protection.

About $1.7 trillion in securities of China-based issuers listed on U.S. exchanges could face trading prohibitions in as little as two years, Y.J. Fischer, director of the U.S. SEC’s Office of International Affairs, warned during remarks at the May 24 annual meeting of the International Council of Securities Associations.

Facing the global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the EMA issued a final revised guideline on the evaluation of new antibiotics. In accordance with an agreement with the U.S. FDA and Japan’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency, the EMA’s guideline aligns as much as possible with the data requirements of those regulators so drug developers can design clinical trials that meet the evidence needs of all three agencies, the EMA said.

Just in case the U.S. FDA didn’t get the message from its advisory committee about drug applications based solely on clinical trial data from China, a trio of U.S. lawmakers wrote to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf to voice their concerns about the “current ‘East to West’ movement of clinical data” to support the approval of me-too drugs.