The recent introduction of the bipartisan Biotech Investment National Security Act in the U.S. House has industry and venture capitalists urging lawmakers to take a breath, step back, and consider a less invasive approach than restricting U.S. biopharma deals with Chinese innovators.
Wuxi Apptec isn’t going down without a fight after the U.S. Department of Defense added it to the Section 1260H list June 8 as a designated “Chinese military company,” which makes it a “biotechnology company of concern” under the Biosecure Act. “Such designation is mistaken and baseless,” the global contract research, development and manufacturing organization said in an open letter to its life sciences partners. “We will pursue every available avenue to correct this mistake.” That includes appealing the designation.
The recent introduction of the bipartisan Biotech Investment National Security Act in the U.S. House has industry and venture capitalists urging lawmakers to take a breath, step back, and consider a less invasive approach than restricting U.S. biopharma deals with Chinese innovators.
The U.S. FDA’s year-old Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher (CNPV) pilot program played to mixed reviews at the agency’s June 4 listening session intended to get various stakeholders’ perspective on the ultra-accelerated review process being offered to qualifying drugs.
The U.S. Supreme Court handed Hikma Pharmaceuticals and the entire generic industry a big victory June 4 with its 9-0 opinion ensuring the future of skinny labels and correcting the Federal Circuit’s flawed understanding of infringed inducement.
Nearly a year after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy announced the U.S. was cutting off funding for Gavi, a global vaccine alliance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his department is reengaging with the organization in light of the ongoing Ebola outbreak in central Africa. In testifying before a June 2 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Rubio said the State Department made the decision to reengage a few weeks earlier with Gavi. He provided no detail of what that engagement looks like.
Rather than reinventing the wheel for every gene therapy that uses genome editing, the U.S. FDA is advising sponsors on leveraging existing knowledge, be it publicly available or platform-based, to more efficiently advance their products across multiple stages of development.
The Trump administration’s efforts to ensure U.S. federal grants align with its policies may soon be coming to fruition. The White House Office of Management and Budget released a proposed rulemaking to revise its Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance.
Landing on the right COVID-19 vaccine formulation for the coming season is becoming more complicated against a backdrop of low vaccination rates, young children with little to no immunization, declining surveillance data and a new SARS-COV-2 lineage slowly emerging.
What would normally be a routine meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee May 28 may be more carefully watched given the overall turmoil surrounding vaccines in the U.S. The only task before the adcom is to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine formula for the upcoming season. That conversation will include looking at the effectiveness of the four FDA-approved vaccines currently in use in the U.S.