The EMA’s 2025 annual report highlights the pressure it is under to streamline and simplify assessment processes, and the expanded – and explicit – role the agency now has in boosting the competitive position of the EU in the development and manufacturing of drugs.
In 2025, China’s outbound life sciences and biopharma deals reached nearly $100 billion, about 12 times the level seen in 2021, underscoring how quickly global appetite for Chinese assets has accelerated, according to a recent report by L.E.K. Consulting.
China’s investigator-initiated trial (IIT) system is increasingly being used to generate early human data in cell and gene therapies, and new changes that widen the pathway are expected to drive more multinational companies to conduct IITs in China, panelists said during the Chinabio Partnering Forum in Shanghai April 28-29.
Taking advantage of new technologies to eliminate the lag time in reporting trial data to the U.S. FDA, the agency is moving toward a real-time clinical trial pilot program that will build on two proof-of-concept trials initiated by Amgen Inc. and Astrazeneca plc.
China’s investigator-initiated trial (IIT) system is increasingly being used to generate early human data in cell and gene therapies, and new changes that widen the pathway are expected to drive more multinational companies to conduct IITs in China, panelists said during the Chinabio Partnering Forum in Shanghai April 28-29.
New U.K. clinical trials regulations coming into force today, April 28, aim to reduce the time taken to get approval for studies and introduce a category of lower risk trials which will be automatically assessed in 14 days. The key measure to cut timelines is the Combined Review, under which sponsors will be able to submit a single application for regulatory review by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and ethics review by the Health Research Authority, the body responsible for managing ethics committees.
The U.S. FDA sent out a friendly reminder to more than 2,200 sponsors and researchers, associated with more than 3,000 clinical trials, who may be delinquent in disclosing the results of those studies on clinicaltrials.gov.
Seeking to increase their understanding of the opportunities and challenges of using digital health technologies (DHTs) in drug trials, the U.S. FDA’s CBER and CDER are requesting public feedback to help inform new guidance as the technologies continue to advance.
The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is to offer an early review of nonanimal data to give companies more confidence that evidence generated with new approach methodologies, such as organoids and microphysiological systems, will be accepted as part of marketing authorization applications.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya is being fact-checked on his off-the cuff responses at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in February. The fact-checkers are nine Democratic lawmakers from Massachusetts, only one of whom (Sen. Ed Markey) is on the committee and attended the hearing. In fact, seven of those signing the March 17 letter that questioned Bhattacharya’s veracity aren’t senators. They serve in the House.
