On August 3, 2017, FDA announced the availability of a draft guidance regarding child resistant packaging statements on drug products labels and labeling. To be clear, this draft guidance addresses the inclusion of a voluntary statement in the labeling for drug products, prescription as well …
In a Complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week, United Therapeutics Corporation (“UTC”) alleges that FDA unlawfully denied granting the company a period of orphan drug exclusivity upon the Agency’s December 20, 2013 approval of NDA 203496 for …
This was FDA’s recent admonition to ChemRite CoPac, Inc. (ChemRite), in a Warning Letter issued on June 29, 2017. Apparently the manufacturer of several over-the-counter oral rinses and oral moisturizing drug products uses the same equipment to manufacture numerous non-pharmaceutical materials, including an industrial car …
On July 27, 2017, the Drug Information Association (DIA) journal, Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, published recommendations from the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) Patient Groups & Clinical Trials (PGCT) Project team, of which HP&M Attorney James E. Valentine is a member, on the best …
The Department of Justice announced on July 24, 2017, that Celgene agreed, without admitting liability, to pay a total of $280 million to settle a qui tam case relating to two of its drug products, Thalomid® and Revlimid®. The qui tam complaint filed in the …
On July 25, 2017, FDA announced the availability of a guidance on “IRB Waiver or Alteration of Informed Consent for Clinical Investigations Involving No More Than Minimal Risk to Human Subjects.” FDA issued this guidance for immediate implementation, without initially seeking prior comment, based on …
Earlier this week, we discussed in a post how FDA, under the Agency’s decades-old regulations defining the term “same drug,” evaluates orphan drug “sameness” in the context of fusion proteins. At the end of that post we suggested that gene therapy “sameness” might be the …
FDA’s Orphan Drug Program, which traces its birth back to the January 4, 1983 enactment of the Orphan Drug Act (“ODA”) (see our previous post here), is probably one of the most successful FDA programs to date. The success of the ODA is most apparent …
In the almost four years since passage of Title I of the Drug Quality Security Act, (the Compounding Quality Act), FDA has inspected hundreds of pharmacies, issued numerous Form 483s and warning letters, and has requested both voluntary recalls and cessation of non-sterile and sterile …
In a case full of twists and turns, there’s a new twist! In March 2017, we reported on the status of litigation between FDA and Ferring Pharmaceuticals Inc. (“Ferring”) over the availability of 5-year New Chemical Entity (“NCE”) exclusivity for Ferring’s colonoscopy preparation, PREPOPIK (sodium picosulfate, …
On July 11, 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) provided Congress with an assessment report on FDA’s Expanded Access (“EA”) program. EA programs allow patients with serious or life-threatening diseases and no satisfactory therapy available to access investigational drugs outside of a clinical trial (report …
On July 18, 2017, FDA held a highly anticipated public meeting discussing the balance between pharmaceutical competition and innovation. Titled “Administering the Hatch-Waxman Amendments: Ensuring a Balance Between Innovation and Access,” the meeting drew a tremendous response from industry with dozens of non-FDA or FTC …
Back in mid-May 2017, when FDA issued the fourth cumulative supplement to the 37th edition of the Orange Book, observant readers may have noticed a couple of interesting entries on page A-7 of the publication. There, in the “PATENT AND EXCLUSIVITY DRUG PRODUCT LIST,” FDA …
In late June, Pacira Pharmaceuticals informed the FDA, the European Medicines Agency, and Health Canada that the company had filed a notice with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, advising of its intent to discontinue all future production of DepoCyt® due to “…persistent technical issues …
We previously blogged (here) about Maryland’s law prohibiting “price gouging” by generic pharmaceutical manufacturers. That bill, H.B. 631 (437th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Md. 2017)) (hereinafter, “HB 631”), was passed by the Maryland General Assembly on April 20, 2017 and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan stated, …
