As Prescribed

In a May 27 Federal Register notice, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the reinstatement of the Unapproved Drugs Initiative, the FDA’s compliance policy governing marketed unapproved drugs. The announcement is an abrupt—but not unexpected—reversal from a previously issued controversial decision by the Trump administration’s HHS to end the Unapproved Drugs Initiative in November 2020. The reinstatement means that companies that market unapproved drugs should reassess their risk under FDA’s preexisting enforcement priorities.

The Purple Book—a database containing information about all licensed biological productsis set for a revamping that offers more patent transparency regarding reference biologics.

Over the past year and as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, FDA relied on alternative inspectional tools and approaches, including remote interactive evaluations and record requests, as well as a prioritization scheme, to continue its oversight activities.

FDA recently issued its first clinicaltrials.gov notice of noncompliance to a clinical trial sponsor for failure to submit clinical trial results to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) databank. Despite having authority to issues such notices since the 2007 passage of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA), FDA has not previously exercised its clinicaltrials.gov enforcement authority.

In an apparent effort to combat prescription drug shortages and price spikes, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced the forthcoming termination of FDA’s Unapproved Drugs Initiative (UDI). This announcement essentially walks back FDA’s enforcement approach regarding “marketed unapproved drugs,” allowing them to continue to be sold consistent with the 2006 FDA policy, and may cause objections from those companies that spent millions of dollars in scientific resources and application user fees to obtain New Drug Application (NDA) approval for these drugs over the last 14 years.

The need for alternative sources of alcohol for hand sanitizer products continues to grow in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Following its March 20 guidance, which allowed companies not previously registered to produce over-the-counter hand sanitizer to do so, the FDA released additional guidance on what conditions should be met for the manufacture of alcohol for hand sanitizer products. Kathleen Sanzo, Jacqueline Berman, and Alexandre Gapihan itemize those conditions in their recently authored LawFlash.

Our FDA lawyers discuss provisions in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that are of particular concern and interest for the pharmaceutical, medical device, animal drug, and food industries, as well the potential effects of the stimulus package, in this recent LawFlash.

In its March 20 guidance, FDA addresses postmarket adverse event reporting for drugs, biologics, medical devices, combination products, and dietary supplements during a pandemic. Kathleen Sanzo, Jacqueline Berman, Michele Buenafe, and Dennis Gucciardo explain the guidance in this LawFlash.

Through FDA’s Policy for Certain REMS Requirements During COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, FDA provides temporary relief from laboratory testing and imaging requirements for certain drugs and biologics subject to REMS with those specific prerequisites.

In light of the growing coronavirus (COVID-19) public health challenge, the FDA issued guidance on March 18 on general considerations for conducting clinical trials of medical products during the COVID-19 pandemic.