Archive for the ‘Drug Approval and Access’ Category
Sunday, September 5th, 2010
One of industry’s great fears is that FDA will become obsessed by theoretical or miniscule safety concerns and ignore the difficult realities of providing consumers with a varied and plentiful food supply and providing patients with effective medical therapies.
It is even possible to think this has occurred. It has been a long summer of media and Congressional attention to safety: whether drug manufacturing, medical products already on the market or Salmonella contaminated eggs. A closer look suggests to FDA Matters that theoretical safety risks and inappropriate FDA concerns about safety are not the issue. (more…)
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Thursday, August 26th, 2010
With Congress out of session until September 13, the Executive Branch has the opportunity to gain extra column inches and media bandwidth. Thus, last week’s report on medical countermeasures (MCM), released by HHS Secretary Sebelius, drew a lot of interest and a minimum of Congressional comment.
The Secretary released the findings and recommendations from a top-to-bottom review of the Department’s efforts with regard to the development of MCM. In the view of FDA Matters, the report thrusts FDA back into its rightful place as a key agency deserving more resources and respect for its national security responsibilities. (more…)
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Friday, August 20th, 2010
Guest Column: Summer, Camp, Kids, Cancer
By Margaret Anderson, Executive Director, FasterCures
While we focus on improving the efficiencies of the system that discovers treatments and cures for disease, there are untold numbers of people taking a medical treatment journey right now. For the kids partaking in the 28th year of Camp Fantastic in Virginia this week, they get to focus more on the fun, and less on the challenges of coping with a cancer diagnosis and with treatment. Camp Fantastic is a program of a nonprofit called Special Love that gives cancer families support. (more…)
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Sunday, August 15th, 2010
When my Smartphone delivered an e-mail at 5:12 p.m. on Friday: “FDA approv…,” I knew that FDA had just announced something controversial. All public relations people (including those at FDA) have been taught that late Friday is the time to release stories you don’t want to receive much attention.
Indeed, it was the 5-day emergency contraceptive pill, Ella, that was approved. So far, FDA seems to have achieved its goal of less coverage. But I was left wondering if the announcement required that treatment and why it led one advocate to describe the decision as “further evidence that the FDA is committed to restoring scientific integrity in its decisions.” (more…)
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Sunday, August 8th, 2010
FDA supposedly swings back and forth between emphasizing “expedited approvals of promising therapies” and “extended pre-approval examination of every safety issue.” Current thinking is that FDA is now leaning more toward the safety end of this spectrum.
FDA Matters thinks a lot of this is perceptual. Approval decisions reflect FDA’s honest and relatively clear judgment on medical need, quality of the clinical data, and the risks and benefits of a specific product. Mostly, I can understand FDA’s decisions, even when I don’t agree. Still, there is a lot of tension within FDA and with various stakeholders about approvals versus safety risk. (more…)
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Sunday, August 1st, 2010
Several generations of North American trained doctors were taught: if you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras. This graphic image reinforced an important aspect of medicine for young physicians seeing mostly severely ill patients in tertiary care hospitals: if an otherwise healthy patient is coughing, it is most likely a bad cold. It is almost certainly not pneumonic plague.
What Congress, FDA, and NIH have learned over the last 30 years is that there are many more medical zebras in the United States than anyone imagined. NIH has catalogued nearly 7,000 rare diseases. More are being discovered all the time. Altogether, it is estimated that 25 to 30 million Americans are affected by rare diseases. (more…)
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Sunday, July 25th, 2010
FDA is working on an approval pathway for bio-similars, re-examining the way medical devices are reviewed, trying to upgrade the quality and speed of generic drug reviews and will soon be evaluating its process for granting accelerated approvals to drugs.
These seemingly unconnected activities all have in common that they are supposed to be abbreviated processes to get new products to patients more quickly without risking safety or quality problems. FDA Matters thinks FDA should articulate its philosophy about how these short-cuts should work and what standards apply in all instances. (more…)
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Sunday, July 11th, 2010
For the news media, the only FDA story this coming week will be the two-day advisory committee meeting reviewing the diabetes drug, Avandia. Based on an earlier article (link below), FDA Matters will be looking at how Dr. Hamburg’s FDA handles the discordant voices coming from within the agency.
Missing from public dialogue is the extraordinary (perhaps unprecedented) number of large, consequential projects that FDA will be working on this summer. Every part of FDA is involved in some initiative that could become a “game-changer” for the agency. (more…)
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Posted in Drug Approval and Access, FDA Accountability and Transparency, FDA Leadership, FDA and Congress, FDA and Industry, FDA-NIH Relations, Follow-on Biologics, Food Issues, Orphan Drugs | No Comments »
Sunday, June 27th, 2010
This week’s hottest bio-pharmaceutical story was the June 18 FDA advisory committee’s review of a drug to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). The committee did not recommend approval of the drug, but encouraged the sponsoring company and others to continue working in this area.
What struck me most was the contrast between the seriousness of the advisory committee in deciding whether the treatment was safe and effective in treating a genuine medical disorder and the inability of the American media to report the story objectively or sympathetically. (more…)
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Posted in Drug Approval and Access, Insight on FDA-regulated Industries | 1 Comment »
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
Two weeks ago, FDA Matters explored Dr. Hamburg’s legacy, focusing on advocacy for resources, prioritizing regulatory science and upgrading enforcement. These will be accomplished before she leaves office. But is she making similar progress in creating “a new FDA?” (more…)
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