By Kurt R. Karst – Every few years, interest in the creation of a third category of drug products – something other than prescription or Over-the-Counter (“OTC”) status – is piqued by FDA, Congress, or by some other entity. The most recent attempt to explore the …
By Kurt R. Karst – Among the Warning Letters FDA posted on its website this week, one in particular caught our attention – a February 17, 2012 Warning Letter to Merck Sharp and Dohme Corp. (“Merck”) citing a violatation of FDC Act § 505(o)(3). FDA’s enforcement …
By Kurt R. Karst – Following the Federal Circuit’s recent precedential decision in AstraZeneca Pharms. v. Apotex et al. (Case No. 2011-1182) (in which the Court held that an ANDA sponsor who submits a “section viii” statement with respect to an Orange Book-listed method-of-use patent and does …
By Kurt R. Karst – Following a long court battle in which a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed a November 2010 decision from the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming granting FDA’s Motion to Dismiss a …
By Kurt R. Karst – Just days after FDA announced the release of three draft guidances on biosimilar product development (see our previous post here), and on the same day FDA officially noticed their availability in the Federal Register (here, here, and here) (as well as …
By Kurt R. Karst & David B. Clissold – Three House lawmakers (Reps. Henry Waxman(D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Diana DeGette (D-CO)) sent letters (here and here) to FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg and NIH Director Francis Collins earlier this week expressing their concern over a …
By Kurt R. Karst – Last week, Representative Bobby Rush (D-IL) announced the introduction of H.R. 3995, the Protecting Consumer Access to Generic Drugs Act of 2012. The bill is the latest piece of legislation that attempts to stymie so-called pay-for-delay patent settlement agreements. In January …
By Nisha P. Shah – On February 9, 2012, FDA released a new guidance document called, “Guidance For Sponsors, Investigators, and Institutional Review Boards – Questions and Answers on Informed Consent Elements, 21 CFR § 50.25(c).” The guidance is intended to help small businesses understand the …
By Kurt R. Karst – Within moments of FDA’s (Dr. Janet Woodcock) announcement during the February 9th House Energy and Commerce hearing on generic drug and biosimilar user fees that the Agency would issue draft guidance on biosimilar product development later in the day, Twitter was, …
By Kurt R. Karst – In music, “coda” is a term used primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece (or a movement, which may be part of a symphony – an extended musical composition) to an end – the “fine.” A coda can be …
By Kurt R. Karst – It’s about that time of year again when we do some number crunching and take stock of the year that was in orphan drug designations and approvals. And what a year it was! FDA not only approved a record 26 marketing …
By Kurt R. Karst – On February 7, 2012, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued her decision in the long-running dispute concerning FDA’s July 23, 2010 approval of Sandoz Inc.’s (“Sandoz’s”) ANDA No. 077857 for a generic version …
By Kurt R. Karst – Earlier this week, Representatives John Carney (D-DE) and Larry Bucshon (R-IN) introduced H.R.3839, the “Drug Shortage Prevention Act,” which, according to its sponsors, is intended to bring “more efficiency to the manufacturing and distribution processes” and to require “FDA to …
By Kurt R. Karst – A new report released by the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”), titled “Antibiotics: FDA Needs to Do More to Ensure That Drug Labels Contain Up-to-Date Information,” says that since the September 27, 2007 enactment of the FDA Amendments Act (“FDAAA”) FDA has …
By Kurt R. Karst – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) has been sued once again after denying a Patent Term Extension (“PTE”) request. The latest case in a long line of lawsuits concerns U.S. Patent No. 5,206,248 (“the ‘248 patent”), which is listed in …
