We are almost two months into FY 2015 and the first year of metrics for GDUFA, but have you noticed that the Generics Activity Report of the Generic Drug Program has not yet published for the October? As we understand it, the new OGD/CDER IT platform, noted by Dr. Woodcock as having some problems at the GPhA Fall Technical Workshop, is perhaps the culprit.
Today, FDA issued a Public Notification indicating that the supplement Alpha Male, marketed with a tag line of “Knock it out of the Park with Alpha Male!” contains derivatives of both tadalafil (the active ingredient in Cialis) and derivatives of sildenafil (the active ingredient in Viagra). This is just another in a long line of supplemental products containing adulterants that makes them not only new drugs, but also dangerous.
With all of the publicity (mostly negative) about the approval of the first (non-abuse-deterrent) hydrocodone bitartrate single entity extended-release (ER) product, Zohydro, by Zogenix, the race was on for the development of an abuse-deterrent formulation. On November 20, 2014, Purdue Pharma won that race with the approval of Hysingla (hydrocodone bitartrate) ER-Tablets with abuse-deterrent properties. Purdue obtained approval for 20 mg, 30 mg, 40 mg, 60 mg, 80 mg, 100mg, and 120 mg tablets.
After almost a year of protests from the industry, consumer groups, the public and GPhA, the FDA has decided to take a deeper dive into the many comments before finalizing (or hopefully abandoning) their proposed rule on permitting ANDA holders to revise or add label warnings.
The FDA has released its 2013 report to Congress regarding delays caused by 505(q) petitions. As most of you know, a 505(q) petition was created by Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007 to require certain response times to petitions submitted to the FDA that would potentially delay the approval of a 505(j) or a 505(b)(2) application. Congress took this action because FDA response times to Citizen Petitions sometimes took years and industry complained that these delays in response caused delays in approvals for ANDA and (b)(2) applications.
FDA has done very well since the FDAAA in meeting the timeframes for response.
CBS Morning Rounds recently ran a piece on the soaring cost of certain generic drug prices. Despite the potential divisiveness of the topic, the piece was very balanced…The CBS piece cites potential reasons certain price increases have occurred as a decrease in the amount of competition for a particular drug product, temporary exit from the product market due to manufacturing problems, or decreases in the supply of active ingredients.
On November 12, 2014, the FDA responded (here) to a September 23, 2014 correspondence to Dr. Janet Woodcock, Director, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and also submitted the same to Docket No. FDA-2012-P-0566 regarding the safety of PEG 3350 for pediatric patients. The big debate is a bit broader than just pediatric safety; it involves an Agency determination stating that, when a product is completely switched from prescription to OTC status,, the product can no longer be marketed by prescription.
After years of FDA assigning unique establishment numbers to FDA inspected facilities, the Agency has published a procedural Guidance today entitled, “Specification of the Unique Facility Identifier (UFI) System for Drug Establishment Registration: Guidance for Industry”, identifying their choice of the Data Universal Numbering System D-U-N-S (DUNS) number, assigned and managed by Dun and Bradstreet.
With an anemic start to the month (only 3 ANDA approvals through 10/26/14), the Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) kicked it into high gear during the last days of the month to end the month with 31 total final ANDA approvals.
FDA usually does not make comments on pending new drug applications (NDAs) nor do they usually publicly discuss conversations with sponsors. However, in this instance, FDA has made a rather interesting disclosure relative to a pending NDA for a serious and devastating disease, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD).
