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Archive for the ‘FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning – GCP, GLP, ISO 14155’ Category

2022 FDA Drug Approval List, 2022 Biological Approvals and Approved Cellular and Gene Therapy Products

Posted in cell-based therapy, Drug Discovery Chemistry, FDA, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, Pharmaceutical Discovery, Pharmaceutical Drug Discovery, Pharmaceutical R&D Informatics, Pharmacodynamics and Pharmacokinetics, Regenerative Biology and Medicine on January 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »

2022 FDA Drug Approval List, 2022 Biological Approvals and Approved Cellular and Gene Therapy Products

 

 

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

SOURCE

Tal Bahar’s post on LinkedIn on 1/17/2023

Novel Drug Approvals for 2022

FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)

New Molecular Entities (“NMEs”)

  • Some of these products have never been used in clinical practice. Below is a listing of new molecular entities and new therapeutic biological products that CDER approved in 2022. This listing does not contain vaccines, allergenic products, blood and blood products, plasma derivatives, cellular and gene therapy products, or other products that the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research approved in 2022. 
  • Others are the same as, or related to, previously approved products, and they will compete with those products in the marketplace. See Drugs@FDA for information about all of CDER’s approved drugs and biological products. 

Certain drugs are classified as new molecular entities (“NMEs”) for purposes of FDA review. Many of these products contain active moieties that FDA had not previously approved, either as a single ingredient drug or as part of a combination product. These products frequently provide important new therapies for patients. Some drugs are characterized as NMEs for administrative purposes, but nonetheless contain active moieties that are closely related to active moieties in products that FDA has previously approved. FDA’s classification of a drug as an “NME” for review purposes is distinct from FDA’s determination of whether a drug product is a “new chemical entity” or “NCE” within the meaning of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. 

INNOVATION   PREDICTABILITY   ACCESS FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research

January 2023

Table of Contents

 SOURCE

2022 Biological Approvals

The Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) regulates products under a variety of regulatory authorities.  See the Development & Approval Process page for a description of what products are approved as Biologics License Applications (BLAs), Premarket Approvals (PMAs), New Drug Applications (NDAs) or 510Ks.

Biologics License Applications and Supplements

New BLAs (except those for blood banking), and BLA supplements that are expected to significantly enhance the public health (e.g., for new/expanded indications, new routes of administration, new dosage formulations and improved safety).

Other Applications Approved or Cleared by the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)

Medical devices involved in the collection, processing, testing, manufacture and administration of licensed blood, blood components and cellular products.

Key Resources

SOURCE

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/development-approval-process-cber/2022-biological-approvals

 

Approved Cellular and Gene Therapy Products

Below is a list of licensed products from the Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies (OTAT).

Approved Products

 

Resources For You

SOURCE

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/cellular-gene-therapy-products/approved-cellular-and-gene-therapy-products

 

2022 forecast: Cell, gene therapy makers push past regulatory, payer hurdles to set up high hopes for next year

By Arlene Weintraub
Dec 22, 2021 03:00am

There are five FDA-approved CAR-T treatments for blood cancers and two gene therapies to treat rare diseases now on the market in the U.S. The late-stage pipeline could produce several more cancer CAR-Ts and gene therapies to treat a range of diseases.

RELATED: ASH: Bristol Myers’ Breyanzi, Gilead’s Yescarta lock horns in race to move CAR-T therapy to earlier lymphoma

One of the biggest races to watch in the cell therapy space will be that between Gilead Sciences’ Yescarta and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Breyanzi, both of which are gunning to move their CAR-Ts into earlier lines of treatment in large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL). At ASH, both companies rolled out impressive data from their trials in the second-line setting, but Gilead could have the upper hand by virtue of its three-year head start in the market, analysts said. Gilead expects to hear from the FDA on a label expansion in the second-line setting in April.

SOURCE

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National Public Radio interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci on his optimism on a COVID-19 vaccine by early 2021

Posted in Biomarkers: Inflammation, Coronavirus Gene Expression, Drug Development Process, Economic Impact of Coronavirus Pandemic, FDA, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, Inflammatory Pathophysiology, number of asymptomatic infections, Pharmaceutical Discovery, Population genetics, SARS-CoV-2, Systemic Inflammatory Response Related Disorders, Treatment Protocols for COVID-19, Vaccinology, Virus Infective Acute Respiratory Syndrome: SARS-CoV, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »

National Public Radio interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci on his optimism on a COVID-19 vaccine by early 2021

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

Below I am giving a link to an important interview by NPR’s Judy Woodruff with Dr. Anthony Fauci on his thoughts regarding the recent spikes in cases, the potential for a COVID-19 vaccine by next year, and promising therapeutics in the pipeline.  The interview link is given below however I will summarize a few of the highlights of the interview.

 

Some notes on the interview

Judy Woodruff began her report with some up to date news regarding the recent spike and that Miami Florida has just ordered the additional use of facemasks.  She asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD), about if the measures currently in use are enough to bring this spike down.  Dr. Fauci said that we need to reboot our efforts, mainly because people are not doing three things which could have prevented this spike mainly

  1. universal wearing of masks
  2. distancing properly from each other
  3. close the bars and pubs (see Wisconsin bars packed after ruling)

It hasn’t been a uniform personal effort

Dr. Fauci on testing

We have to use the tests we have out there efficiently and effectively And we have to get them out to the right people who can do the proper identification, isolation, and do proper contract tracing and need to test more widely in a surveillance way to get a feel of the extent and penetrance of this community spread.  there needs to be support and money for these testing labs

We have a problem and we need to admit and own it but we need to do the things we know are effective to turn this thing around.

On Vaccines

“May be later this year”

His response to Merck’s CEO Ken Frazer who said officials are giving false hop if they say ‘end of year’ but Dr. Fauci disagrees.  He says a year end goal is not outlandish.

What we have been doing is putting certain things in line with each other in an unprecedented way.

Dr. Fauci went on to say that, in the past yes, it took a long time, even years to develop a vaccine but now they have been able to go from sequence of virus to a vaccine development program in days, which is unheard of.  Sixty two days later we have gone into phase 1 trials. the speed at which this is occurring is so much faster.  He says that generally it would take a couple of years to get a neutralizing antibody but we are already there.  Another candidate will be undergoing phase 3 trials by end of this month (July 2020).

He is “cautiously optimistic” that we will have one or more vaccines to give to patients by end of year because given the amount of cases it will be able to get a handle on safety and efficacy by late fall.

Now he says the game changer is that the government is working with companies to ramp up the production of doses of the candidate vaccines so when we find which one works we will have ample doses on hand.  He is worried about the anti vaccine movement derailing vaccine testing and vaccinations but says if we keep on informing the public we can combat this.

Going back to school

Dr. Fauci is concerned for the safety of the vulnerable in schools, including students and staff.  He wants the US to get down to a reasonable baseline of cases but in the US that baseline after the first wave was still significantly higher than in most countries, where the baseline was more like tens of cases not hundreds of cases.

For more information on COVID-19 Please go to our Coronavirus Portal at

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/coronavirus-portal/

 

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Real Time Coverage @BIOConvention #BIO2019: Genome Editing and Regulatory Harmonization: Progress and Challenges

Posted in and Bioethics, Biotechnology, Conference Coverage with Social Media, CRISPR applied to Human Germ Line, CRISPR/Cas9 & Gene Editing, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, Gene Editing Impact on Longevity, Gene Therapy & Gene Editing Development, Health Law & Patient Safety, Health Law Policy, REAL TIME Conference Coverage Twitter's Hashtags and Handles per Presentation/session, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Real Time Coverage @BIOConvention #BIO2019: Genome Editing and Regulatory Harmonization: Progress and Challenges

Reporter: Stephen J Williams, PhD @StephenJWillia2

 

Genome editing offers the potential of new and effective treatments for genetic diseases. As companies work to develop these treatments, regulators are focused on ensuring that any such products meet applicable safety and efficacy requirements. This panel will discuss how European Union and United States regulators are approaching therapeutic use of genome editing, issues in harmonization between these two – and other – jurisdictions, challenges faced by industry as regulatory positions evolve, and steps that organizations and companies can take to facilitate approval and continued efforts at harmonization.

 

Speakers

CBER:  because of the nature of these gene therapies, which are mainly orphan, there is expedited review.  Since they started this division in 2015, they have received over 1500 applications.

Spark: Most of the issues were issues with the primary disease not the gene therapy so they had to make new endpoint tests so had talks with FDA before they entered phase III.   There has been great collaboration with FDA,  now they partnered with Novartis to get approval outside US.  You should be willing to partner with EU pharmas to expedite the regulatory process outside US.  In China the process is new and Brazil is behind on their gene therapy guidance.  However there is the new issue of repeat testing of your manufacturing process, as manufacturing of gene therapies had been small scale before. However he notes that problems with expedited review is tough because you don’t have alot of time to get data together.  They were lucky that they had already done a randomized trial.

Sidley Austin:  EU regulatory you make application with advance therapy you don’t have a national option, the regulation body assesses a committee to see if has applicability. Then it goes to a safety committee.  EU has been quicker to approve these advance therapies. Twenty five percent of their applications are gene therapies.  Companies having issues with manufacturing.  There can be issues when the final application is formalized after discussions as problems may arise between discussions, preliminary applications, and final applications.

Sarepta: They have a robust gene therapy program.  Their lead is a therapy for DMD (Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy) where affected males die by 25. Japan and EU have different regulatory applications and although they are similar and data can be transferred there is more paperwork required by EU.  The US uses an IND for application. Global feedback is very challenging, they have had multiple meetings around the world and takes a long time preparing a briefing package….. putting a strain on the small biotechs.  No company wants to be either just EU centric or US centric they just want to get out to market as fast as possible.

 

Please follow LIVE on TWITTER using the following @ handles and # hashtags:

@Handles

@pharma_BI

@AVIVA1950

@BIOConvention

# Hashtags

#BIO2019 (official meeting hashtag)

 

 

 

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Real Time Coverage @BIOConvention #BIO2019: Chat with @FDA Commissioner, & Challenges in Biotech & Gene Therapy June 4 Philadelphia

Posted in Cancer Genomics, CAR-T, Disease Biology, Exosomes, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, Gene Therapy & Gene Editing Development, Genetics & Innovations in Treatment, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, HealthCare IT, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Real Time Coverage @BIOConvention #BIO2019: Chat with @FDA Commissioner, & Challenges in Biotech & Gene Therapy June 4 Philadelphia

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD @StephenJWillia2

 

Fireside Chat with Dr. Norman Sharpless, Acting Commissioner, US Food and Drug Administration

109AB, Level 100

Speakers
  • taking patient concerns and voices from anecdotal to data driven system
  • talked about patient accrual hearing patient voice not only in ease of access but reporting toxicities
  • at FDA he wants to remove barriers to trial access and accrual; also talk earlier to co’s on how they should conduct a trial

Digital tech

  • software as medical device
  • regulatory path is mixed like next gen sequencing
  • wearables are concern for FDA (they need to recruit scientists who know this tech

Opioids

  • must address the crisis but in a way that does not harm cancer pain patients
  • smaller pain packs “blister packs” would be good idea

Clinical trial modernization

  • for Alzheimers disease problem is science
  • for diabetes problem is regulatory
  • different diseases calls for different trial design
  • have regulatory problems with rare diseases as can’t form control or placebo group, inhumane. for example ras tumors trials for MEK inhibitors were narrowly focused on certain ras mutants

The Changing Global Face of Biotechnology: Opportunities and Challenges for Healthcare Systems

115A, Level 100

Speakers
Realizing the Promise of Gene Therapies for Patients Around the World

103ABC, Level 100

Speakers
Lots of promise, timeline is progressing faster but we need more education on use of the gene therapy
Regulatory issues: Cell and directly delivered gene based therapies have been now approved. Some challenges will be the ultrarare disease trials and how we address manufacturing issues.  Manufacturing is a big issue at CBER and scalability.  If we want to have global impact of these products we need to address the manufacturing issues
 of scalability.
Pfizer – clinical grade and scale is important.
Aventis – he knew manufacturing of biologics however gene therapy manufacturing has its separate issues and is more complicated especially for regulatory purposes for clinical grade as well as scalability.  Strategic decision: focusing on the QC on manufacturing was so important.  Had a major issue in manufacturing had to shut down and redesign the system.
Albert:  Manufacturing is the most important topic even to the investors.  Investors were really conservative especially seeing early problems but when academic centers figured out good efficacy then they investors felt better and market has exploded.  Now you can see investment into preclinical and startups but still want mature companies to focus on manufacturing.  About $10 billion investment in last 4 years.

How Early is Too Early? Valuing and De-Risking Preclinical Opportunities

109AB, Level 100

Speakers
Valuing early-stage opportunities is challenging. Modeling will often provide a false sense of accuracy but relying on comparable transactions is more art than science. With a long lead time to launch, even the most robust estimates can ultimately prove inaccurate. This interactive panel will feature venture capital investors and senior pharma and biotech executives who lead early-stage transactions as they discuss their approaches to valuing opportunities, and offer key learnings from both successful and not-so-successful experiences.
Dr. Schoenbeck, Pfizer:
  • global network of liaisons who are a dedicated team to research potential global startup partners or investments.  Pfizer has a separate team to evaluate academic laboratories.  In Most cases Pfizer does not initiate contact.  It is important to initiate the first discussion with them in order to get noticed.  Could be just a short chat or discussion on what their needs are for their portfolio.

Question: How early is too early?

Luc Marengere, TVM:  His company has early stage focus, on 1st in class molecules.  The sweet spot for their investment is a candidate selected compound, which should be 12-18 months from IND.  They will want to bring to phase II in less than 4 years for $15-17 million.  Their development model is bad for academic labs.  During this process free to talk to other partners.

Dr. Chaudhary, Biogen:  Never too early to initiate a conversation and sometimes that conversation has lasted 3+ years before a decision.  They like build to buy models, will do convertible note deals, candidate compound selection should be entering in GLP/Tox phase (sweet spot)

Merck: have MRL Venture Fund for pre series A funding.  Also reiterated it is never too early to have that initial discussion.  It will not put you in a throw away bin.  They will have suggestions and never like to throw out good ideas.

Michael Hostetler: Set expectations carefully ; data should be validated by a CRO.  If have a platform, they will look at the team first to see if strong then will look at the platform to see how robust it is.

All noted that you should be completely honest at this phase.  Do not overstate your results or data or overhype your compound(s).  Show them everything and don’t have a bias toward compounds you think are the best in your portfolio.  Sometimes the least developed are the ones they are interested in.  Also one firm may reject you however you may fit in others portfolios better so have a broad range of conversations with multiple players.

 

 

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The Regulatory challenge in adopting AI

Posted in An executive's guide to AI, Artificial Intelligence - Breakthroughs in Theories and Technologies, Artificial Intelligence - General, Artificial intelligence applications for cardiology, Artificial Intelligence Applications in Health Care, Artificial Intelligence in Health Care - Tools & Innovations, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine - Application for Diagnosis, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine - Applications in Therapeutics, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, ISO 10993 for Product Registration: FDA & CE Mark for Development of Medical Devices and Diagnostics, Regulated Clinical Trials: Design, Methods, Components and IRB related issues, Uncategorized on April 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

The Regulatory challenge in adopting AI

Author and Curator: Dror Nir, PhD

3.4.3

3.4.3   The Regulatory challenge in adopting AI, Volume 2 (Volume Two: Latest in Genomics Methodologies for Therapeutics: Gene Editing, NGS and BioInformatics, Simulations and the Genome Ontology), Part 2: CRISPR for Gene Editing and DNA Repair

In the last couple of years we are witnessing a surge of AI applications in healthcare. It is clear now, that AI and its wide range of health-applications are about to revolutionize diseases’ pathways and the way the variety of stakeholders in this market interact.

Not surprisingly, the developing surge has waken the regulatory watchdogs who are now debating ways to manage the introduction of such applications to healthcare. Attributing measures to known regulatory checkboxes like safety, and efficacy is proving to be a complex exercise. How to align claims made by manufacturers, use cases, users’ expectations and public expectations is unclear. A recent demonstration of that is the so called “failure” of AI in social-network applications like FaceBook and Twitter in handling harmful materials.

‘Advancing AI in the NHS’ – is a report covering the challenges and opportunities of AI in the NHS. It is a modest contribution to the debate in such a timely and fast-moving field!  I bring here the report’s preface and executive summary hoping that whoever is interested in reading the whole 50 pages of it will follow this link: f53ce9_e4e9c4de7f3c446fb1a089615492ba8c

Screenshot 2019-04-07 at 17.18.18

Acknowledgements

We and Polygeia as a whole are grateful to Dr Dror Nir, Director, RadBee, whose insights

were valuable throughout the research, conceptualisation, and writing phases of this work; and to Dr Giorgio Quer, Senior Research Scientist, Scripps Research Institute; Dr Matt Willis, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; Professor Eric T. Meyer, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; Alexander Hitchcock, Senior Researcher, Reform; Windi Hari, Vice President Clinical, Quality & Regulatory, HeartFlow; Jon Holmes, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Vivosight; and Claudia Hartman, School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford for their advice and support.

Author affiliations

Lev Tankelevitch, University of Oxford

Alice Ahn, University of Oxford

Rachel Paterson, University of Oxford

Matthew Reid, University of Oxford

Emily Hilbourne, University of Oxford

Bryan Adriaanse, University of Oxford

Giorgio Quer, Scripps Research Institute

Dror Nir, RadBee

Parth Patel, University of Cambridge

All affiliations are at the time of writing.

Polygeia

Polygeia is an independent, non-party, and non-profit think-tank focusing on health and its intersection with technology, politics, and economics. Our aim is to produce high-quality research on global health issues and policies. With branches in Oxford, Cambridge, London and New York, our work has led to policy reports, peer-reviewed publications, and presentations at the House of Commons and the European Parliament. http://www.polygeia.com @Polygeia © Polygeia 2018. All rights reserved.

Foreword

Almost every day, as MP for Cambridge, I am told of new innovations and developments that show that we are on the cusp of a technological revolution across the sectors. This technology is capable of revolutionising the way we work; incredible innovations which could increase our accuracy, productivity and efficiency and improve our capacity for creativity and innovation.

But huge change, particularly through adoption of new technology, can be difficult to  communicate to the public, and if we do not make sure that we explain carefully the real benefits of such technologies we easily risk a backlash. Despite good intentions, the care.data programme failed to win public trust, with widespread worries that the appropriate safeguards weren’t in place, and a failure to properly explain potential benefits to patients. It is vital that the checks and balances we put in place are robust enough to sooth public anxiety, and prevent problems which could lead to steps back, rather than forwards.

Previous attempts to introduce digital innovation into the NHS also teach us that cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaboration is essential. Realising this technological revolution in healthcare will require industry, academia and the NHS to work together and share their expertise to ensure that technical innovations are developed and adopted in ways that prioritise patient health, rather than innovation for its own sake. Alongside this, we must make sure that the NHS workforce whose practice will be altered by AI are on side. Consultation and education are key, and this report details well the skills that will be vital to NHS adoption of AI. Technology is only as good as those who use it, and for this, we must listen to the medical and healthcare professionals who will rightly know best the concerns both of patients and their colleagues. The new Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, the ICO and the National Data Guardian will be key in working alongside the NHS to create both a regulatory framework and the communications which win society’s trust. With this, and with real leadership from the sector and from politicians, focused on the rights and concerns of individuals, AI can be advanced in the NHS to help keep us all healthy.

Daniel Zeichner

MP for Cambridge

Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics

Executive summary

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform how the NHS delivers care. From enabling patients to self-care and manage long-term conditions, to advancing triage, diagnostics, treatment, research, and resource management, AI can improve patient outcomes and increase efficiency. Achieving this potential, however, requires addressing a number of ethical, social, legal, and technical challenges. This report describes these challenges within the context of healthcare and offers directions forward.

Data governance

AI-assisted healthcare will demand better collection and sharing of health data between NHS, industry and academic stakeholders. This requires a data governance system that ensures ethical management of health data and enables its use for the improvement of healthcare delivery. Data sharing must be supported by patients. The recently launched NHS data opt-out programme is an important starting point, and will require monitoring to ensure that it has the transparency and clarity to avoid exploiting the public’s lack of awareness and understanding. Data sharing must also be streamlined and mutually beneficial. Current NHS data sharing practices are disjointed and difficult to negotiate from both industry and NHS perspectives. This issue is complicated by the increasing integration of ’traditional’ health data with that from commercial apps and wearables. Finding approaches to valuate data, and considering how patients, the NHS and its partners can benefit from data sharing is key to developing a data sharing framework. Finally, data sharing should be underpinned by digital infrastructure that enables cybersecurity and accountability.

Digital infrastructure

Developing and deploying AI-assisted healthcare requires high quantity and quality digital data. This demands effective digitisation of the NHS, especially within secondary care, involving not only the transformation of paper-based records into digital data, but also improvement of quality assurance practices and increased data linkage. Beyond data digitisation, broader IT infrastructure also needs upgrading, including the use of innovations such as wearable technology and interoperability between NHS sectors and institutions. This would not only increase data availability for AI development, but also provide patients with seamless healthcare delivery, putting the NHS at the vanguard of healthcare innovation.

Standards

The recent advances in AI and the surrounding hype has meant that the development of AI-assisted healthcare remains haphazard across the industry, with quality being difficult to determine or varying widely. Without adequate product validation, including in

real-world settings, there is a risk of unexpected or unintended performance, such as sociodemographic biases or errors arising from inappropriate human-AI interaction. There is a need to develop standardised ways to probe training data, to agree upon clinically-relevant performance benchmarks, and to design approaches to enable and evaluate algorithm interpretability for productive human-AI interaction. In all of these areas, standardised does not necessarily mean one-size-fits-all. These issues require addressing the specifics of AI within a healthcare context, with consideration of users’ expertise, their environment, and products’ intended use. This calls for a fundamentally interdisciplinary approach, including experts in AI, medicine, ethics, cognitive science, usability design, and ethnography.

Regulations

Despite the recognition of AI-assisted healthcare products as medical devices, current regulatory efforts by the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the European Commission have yet to be accompanied by detailed guidelines which address questions concerning AI product classification, validation, and monitoring. This is compounded by the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the UK’s future relationship with the European Medicines Agency. The absence of regulatory clarity risks compromising patient safety and stalling the development of AI-assisted healthcare. Close working partnerships involving regulators, industry members, healthcare institutions, and independent AI-related bodies (for example, as part of regulatory sandboxes) will be needed to enable innovation while ensuring patient safety.

The workforce

AI will be a tool for the healthcare workforce. Harnessing its utility to improve care requires an expanded workforce with the digital skills necessary for both developing AI capability and for working productively with the technology as it becomes commonplace.

Developing capability for AI will involve finding ways to increase the number of clinician-informaticians who can lead the development, procurement and adoption of AI technology while ensuring that innovation remains tied to the human aspect of healthcare delivery. More broadly, healthcare professionals will need to complement their socio-emotional and cognitive skills with training to appropriately interpret information provided by AI products and communicate it effectively to co-workers and patients.

Although much effort has gone into predicting how many jobs will be affected by AI-driven automation, understanding the impact on the healthcare workforce will require examining how jobs will change, not simply how many will change.

Legal liability

AI-assisted healthcare has implications for the legal liability framework: who should be held responsible in the case of a medical error involving AI? Addressing the question of liability will involve understanding how healthcare professionals’ duty of care will be impacted by use of the technology. This is tied to the lack of training standards for healthcare professionals to safely and effectively work with AI, and to the challenges of algorithm interpretability, with ”black-box” systems forcing healthcare professionals to blindly trust or distrust their output. More broadly, it will be important to examine the legal liability of healthcare professionals, NHS trusts and industry partners, raising questions

Recommendations

  1. The NHS, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, and industry and academic partners should conduct a review to understand the obstacles that the NHS and external organisations face around data sharing. They should also develop health data valuation protocols which consider the perspectives of patients, the NHS, commercial organisations, and academia. This work should inform the development of a data sharing framework.
  2. The National Data Guardian and the Department of Health should monitor the NHS data opt-out programme and its approach to transparency and communication, evaluating how the public understands commercial and non-commercial data use and the handling of data at different levels of anonymisation.
  3. The NHS, patient advocacy groups, and commercial organisations should expand public engagement strategies around data governance, including discussions about the value of health data for improving healthcare; public and private sector interactions in the development of AI-assisted healthcare; and the NHS’s strategies around data anonymisation, accountability, and commercial partnerships. Findings from this work should inform the development of a data sharing framework.
  4. The NHS Digital Security Operations Centre should ensure that all NHS organisations comply with cybersecurity standards, including having up-to-date technology.
  5. NHS Digital, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, and the Alan Turing Institute should develop technological approaches to data privacy, auditing, and accountability that could be implemented in the NHS. This should include learning from Global Digital Exemplar trusts in the UK and from international examples such as Estonia.
  6. The NHS should continue to increase the quantity, quality, and diversity of digital health data across trusts. It should consider targeted projects, in partnership with professional medical bodies, that quality-assure and curate datasets for more deployment-ready AI technology. It should also continue to develop its broader IT infrastructure, focusing on interoperability between sectors, institutions, and technologies, and including the end users as central stakeholders.
  7. The Alan Turing Institute, the Ada Lovelace Institute, and academic and industry partners in medicine and AI should develop ethical frameworks and technological approaches for the validation of training data in the healthcare sector, including methods to minimise performance biases and validate continuously-learning algorithms.
  8. The Alan Turing Institute, the Ada Lovelace Institute, and academic and industry partners in medicine and AI should develop standardised approaches for evaluating product performance in the healthcare sector, with consideration for existing human performance standards and products’ intended use.
  9. The Alan Turing Institute, the Ada Lovelace Institute, and academic and industry partners in medicine and AI should develop methods of enabling and evaluating algorithm interpretability in the healthcare sector. This work should involve experts in AI, medicine, ethics, usability design, cognitive science, and ethnography, among others.
  10. Developers of AI products and NHS Commissioners should ensure that usability design remains a top priority in their respective development and procurement of AI-assisted healthcare products.
  11. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency should establish a digital health unit with expertise in AI and digital products that will work together with manufacturers, healthcare bodies, notified bodies, AI-related organisations, and international forums to advance clear regulatory approaches and guidelines around AI product classification, validation, and monitoring. This should address issues including training data and biases, performance evaluation, algorithm interpretability, and usability.
  12. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, and industry partners should evaluate regulatory approaches, such as regulatory sandboxing, that can foster innovation in AI-assisted healthcare, ensure patient safety, and inform on-going regulatory development.
  13. The NHS should expand innovation acceleration programmes that bridge healthcare and industry partners, with a focus on increasing validation of AI products in real-world contexts and informing the development of a regulatory framework.
  14. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and other Government bodies should arrange a post-Brexit agreement ensuring that UK regulations of medical devices, including AI-assisted healthcare, are aligned as closely as possible to the European framework and that the UK can continue to help shape Europe-wide regulations around this technology.
  15. The General Medical Council, the Medical Royal Colleges, Health Education England, and AI-related bodies should partner with industry and academia on comprehensive examinations of the healthcare sector to assess which, when, and how jobs will be impacted by AI, including analyses of the current strengths, limitations, and workflows of healthcare professionals and broader NHS staff. They should also examine how AI-driven workforce changes will impact patient outcomes.
  16. The Federation of Informatics Professionals and the Faculty of Clinical Informatics should continue to lead and expand standards for health informatics competencies, integrating the relevant aspects of AI into their training, accreditation, and professional development programmes for clinician-informaticians and related professions.
  17. Health Education England should expand training programmes to advance digital and AI-related skills among healthcare professionals. Competency standards for working with AI should be identified for each role and established in accordance with professional registration bodies such as the General Medical Council. Training programmes should ensure that ”un-automatable” socio-emotional and cognitive skills remain an important focus.
  18. The NHS Digital Academy should expand recruitment and training efforts to increase the number of Chief Clinical Information Officers across the NHS, and ensure that the latest AI ethics, standards, and innovations are embedded in their training programme.
  19. Legal experts, ethicists, AI-related bodies, professional medical bodies, and industry should review the implications of AI-assisted healthcare for legal liability. This includes understanding how healthcare professionals’ duty of care will be affected, the role of workforce training and product validation standards, and the potential role of NHS Indemnity and no-fault compensation systems.
  20. AI-related bodies such as the Ada Lovelace Institute, patient advocacy groups and other healthcare stakeholders should lead a public engagement and dialogue strategy to understand the public’s views on liability for AI-assisted healthcare.

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Imaging: seeing or imagining? (Part 2)

Posted in Cancer - General, Cancer and Current Therapeutics, CANCER BIOLOGY & Innovations in Cancer Therapy, Cancer Informatics, Cancer Screening, CT, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, Fiction and medicine, Medical Imaging Technology, Medical Imaging Technology, Image Processing/Computing, MRI, CT, Nuclear Medicine, Ultra Sound, Uncategorized on April 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

3.5.2.6

3.5.2.6   Imaging: seeing or imagining? (Part 2), Volume 2 (Volume Two: Latest in Genomics Methodologies for Therapeutics: Gene Editing, NGS and BioInformatics, Simulations and the Genome Ontology), Part 3: AI in Medicine

That is the question…

Anyone who follows healthcare news, as I do , cannot help being impressed with the number of scientific and non-scientific items that mention the applicability of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (‘MRI’) to medical procedures.

A very important aspect that is worthwhile noting is that the promise MRI bears to improve patients’ screening – pre-clinical diagnosis, better treatment choice, treatment guidance and outcome follow-up – is based on new techniques that enables MRI-based tissue characterisation.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an imaging device that relies on the well-known physical phenomena named “Nuclear Magnetic Resonance”. It so happens that, due to its short relaxation time, the 1H isotope (spin ½ nucleus) has a very distinctive response to changes in the surrounding magnetic field. This serves MRI imaging of the human body well as, basically, we are 90% water. The MRI device makes use of strong magnetic fields changing at radio frequency to produce cross-sectional images of organs and internal structures in the body. Because the signal detected by an MRI machine varies depending on the water content and local magnetic properties of a particular area of the body, different tissues or substances can be distinguished from one another in the scan’s resulting image.

The main advantages of MRI in comparison to X-ray-based devices such as CT scanners and mammography systems are that the energy it uses is non-ionizing and it can differentiate soft tissues very well based on differences in their water content.

In the last decade, the basic imaging capabilities of MRI have been augmented for the purpose of cancer patient management, by using magnetically active materials (called contrast agents) and adding functional measurements such as tissue temperature to show internal structures or abnormalities more clearly.

 

In order to increase the specificity and sensitivity of MRI imaging in cancer detection, various imaging strategies have been developed. The most discussed in MRI related literature are:

  • T2 weighted imaging: The measured response of the 1H isotope in a resolution cell of a T2-weighted image is related to the extent of random tumbling and the rotational motion of the water molecules within that resolution cell. The faster the rotation of the water molecule, the higher the measured value of the T2 weighted response in that resolution cell. For example, prostate cancer is characterized by a low T2 response relative to the values typical to normal prostatic tissue [5].

T2 MRI pelvis with Endo Rectal Coil ( DATA of Dr. Lance Mynders, MAYO Clinic)

  • Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MRI involves a series of rapid MRI scans in the presence of a contrast agent. In the case of scanning the prostate, the most commonly used material is gadolinium [4].

Axial MRI  Lava DCE with Endo Rectal ( DATA of Dr. Lance Mynders, MAYO Clinic)

  • Diffusion weighted (DW) imaging: Provides an image intensity that is related to the microscopic motion of water molecules [5].

DW image of the left parietal glioblastoma multiforme (WHO grade IV) in a 59-year-old woman, Al-Okaili R N et al. Radiographics 2006;26:S173-S189

  • Multifunctional MRI: MRI image overlaid with combined information from T2-weighted scans, dynamic contrast-enhancement (DCE), and diffusion weighting (DW) [5].

Source AJR: http://www.ajronline.org/content/196/6/W715/F3

  • Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) MRI: Assessing tissue oxygenation. Tumors are characterized by a higher density of micro blood vessels. The images that are acquired follow changes in the concentration of paramagnetic deoxyhaemoglobin [5].

In the last couple of years, medical opinion leaders are offering to use MRI to solve almost every weakness of the cancer patients’ pathway. Such proposals are not always supported by any evidence of feasibility. For example, a couple of weeks ago, the British Medical Journal published a study [1] concluding that women carrying a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes who have undergone a mammogram or chest x-ray before the age of 30 are more likely to develop breast cancer than those who carry the gene mutation but who have not been exposed to mammography. What is published over the internet and media to patients and lay medical practitioners is: “The results of this study support the use of non-ionising radiation imaging techniques (such as magnetic resonance imaging) as the main tool for surveillance in young women with BRCA1/2 mutations.”.

Why is ultrasound not mentioned as a potential “non-ionising radiation imaging technique”?

Another illustration is the following advert:

An MRI scan takes between 30 to 45 minutes to perform (not including the time of waiting for the interpretation by the radiologist). It requires the support of around 4 well-trained team members. It costs between $400 and $3500 (depending on the scan).

The important question, therefore, is: Are there, in the USA, enough MRI  systems to meet the demand of 40 million scans a year addressing women with radiographically dense  breasts? Toda there are approximately 10,000 MRI systems in the USA. Only a small percentage (~2%) of the examinations are related to breast cancer. A

A rough calculation reveals that around 10000 additional MRI centers would need to be financed and operated to meet that demand alone.

References

  1. Exposure to diagnostic radiation and risk of breast cancer among carriers of BRCA1/2 mutations: retrospective cohort study (GENE-RAD-RISK), BMJ 2012; 345 doi: 10.1136/bmj.e5660 (Published 6 September 2012), Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e5660 – http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e5660
  1. http://www.auntminnieeurope.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&sub=wom&pag=dis&itemId=607075
  1. Ahmed HU, Kirkham A, Arya M, Illing R, Freeman A, Allen C, Emberton M. Is it time to consider a role for MRI before prostate biopsy? Nat Rev Clin Oncol. 2009;6(4):197-206.
  1. Puech P, Potiron E, Lemaitre L, Leroy X, Haber GP, Crouzet S, Kamoi K, Villers A. Dynamic contrast-enhanced-magnetic resonance imaging evaluation of intraprostatic prostate cancer: correlation with radical prostatectomy specimens. Urology. 2009;74(5):1094-9.
  1. Advanced MR Imaging Techniques in the Diagnosis of Intraaxial Brain Tumors in Adults, Al-Okaili R N et al. Radiographics 2006;26:S173-S189 ,

http://radiographics.rsna.org/content/26/suppl_1/S173.full

  1. Ahmed HU. The Index Lesion and the Origin of Prostate Cancer. N Engl J Med. 2009 Oct; 361(17): 1704-6

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A Timeline of Dr. Gottlieb’s Brief Tenure at the FDA: 2017-2019

Posted in BioSimilars, Drug Development Process, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, Patient Experience: Personal Memories of Invasive Medical Intervantion, Value-based Drug Pricing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

A Timeline of Dr. Gottlieb’s Tenure at the FDA: 2017-2019

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

 

From FiercePharma.com

FDA chief Scott Gottlieb steps down, leaving pet projects behind

Scott Gottlieb FDA
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb was appointed by President Trump in 2017. (FDA)

Also under his command, the FDA took quick and decisive action on drug costs. The commissioner worked to boost generic approvals and crack down on regulatory “gaming” that stifles competition. He additionally blamed branded drug companies for an “anemic” U.S. biosimilars market and recently blasted insulin pricing.

His sudden departure will likely leave many agency efforts to lower costs up in the air. After the news broke, many pharma watchers posted on Twitter that Gottlieb’s resignation is a loss for the industry.

During his tenure as FDA commissioner, Gottlieb’s name had been floated for HHS chief when former HHS secretary Tom Price resigned due to a travel scandal, but Gottlieb said he was best suited for the FDA commissioner job. Now, former Eli Lilly executive Alex Azar serves as HHS secretary, and on Tuesday afternoon, Azar praised Gottlieb for his work at the agency.

Also read from FiercePharma:

Gottlieb’s quick goodbye triggers investor panic, biopharma bewilderment and at least one good riddance

AUDIT Podcast

An emergency Scott Gottlieb podcast

 

Why is Scott Gottlieb quitting the FDA? Who will replace him?

 

A Timeline of Dr. Gottlieb’s Tenure at the FDA

From FiercePharma.com

New FDA commissioner Gottlieb unveils price-fighting strategies

Scott Gottlieb
New FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb laid out some approaches the agency will take to fight high prices.

UPDATED 3/19/2019

From the NYTimes
Dr. Norman E. Sharpless was named acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday. For the last 18 months, he had been director of the National Cancer Institute.CreditTom Williams/CQ Roll Call, via Getty Images
Image
Dr. Norman E. Sharpless was named acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday. For the last 18 months, he had been director of the National Cancer Institute.CreditCreditTom Williams/CQ Roll Call, via Getty Images

By Sheila Kaplan

WASHINGTON — Dr. Norman E. (Ned) Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute, will serve as acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Alex M. Azar III, secretary of health and human services, announced on Tuesday.

Dr. Sharpless temporarily will fill the post being vacated by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who stunned public health experts, lawmakers and consumer groups last week when he abruptly announced that he was resigningfor personal reasons.

Dr. Sharpless has been director of the cancer center, part of the National Institutes of Health, since October 2017. He is also chief of the aging biology and cancer section in the National Institute on Aging’s Laboratory of Genetics and Genomics. His research focuses on the relationship between aging and cancer, and development of new treatments for melanoma, lung cancer and breast cancer.

“Dr. Sharpless’s deep scientific background and expertise will make him a strong leader for F.D.A.,” said Mr. Azar, in a statement. “There will be no let up in the agency’s focus, from ongoing efforts on drug approvals and combating the opioid crisis to modernizing food safety and addressing the rapid rise in youth use of e-cigarettes.”

Dr. Douglas Lowy, known for seminal research on the link between human papillomavirus and multiple cancer types including cervical, and ultimately leading to development of a vaccine, will be named head of the NCI to replace Dr. Sharpless. Dr. Lowy currently is Deputy Director of the NCI.

Other posts on the Food and Drug Administration and FDA Approvals during Dr. Gotlieb’s Tenure on this Open Access Journal Include:

 

Regulatory Affairs: Publications on FDA-related Issues – Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

FDA Approves La Jolla’s Angiotensin 2

In 2018, FDA approved an all-time record of 62 new therapeutic drugs (NTDs) [Not including diagnostic imaging agents, included are combination products with at least one new molecular entity as an active ingredient] with average Peak Sales per NTD $1.2Billion.

Alnylam Announces First-Ever FDA Approval of an RNAi Therapeutic, ONPATTRO™ (patisiran) for the Treatment of the Polyneuropathy of Hereditary Transthyretin-Mediated Amyloidosis in Adults

FDA: Rejects NDA filing: “clinical and non-clinical pharmacology sections of the application were not sufficient to complete a review”: Celgene’s Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis Drug – Ozanimod

Expanded Stroke Thrombectomy Guidelines: FDA expands treatment window for use (Up to 24 Hours Post-Stroke) of clot retrieval devices (Stryker’s Trevo Stent) in certain stroke patients

In 2017, FDA approved a record number of 19 personalized medicines — 16 new molecular entities and 3 gene therapies – PMC’s annual analysis, titled Personalized Medicine at FDA: 2017 Progress Report

FDA Approval marks first presentation of bivalirudin in frozen, premixed, ready-to-use formulation

Skin Regeneration Therapy One of First Tissue Engineering Products Evaluated by FDA

FDA approval on 12/1/2017 of Amgen’s evolocumb (Repatha) a PCSK9 inhibitor for the prevention of heart attacks, strokes, and coronary revascularizations in patients with established cardiovascular disease

FDA Approval of Anti-Depression Digital Pill Tracks Use When Swallowed and transmits to MDs Smartphone – A Breakthrough in Medication Remote Compliance Monitoring

Medical Devices Early Feasibility FDA’s Pathway – Accelerated Recruitment for Randomized Clinical Trials: Replacement and Repair of Mitral Valves

Novartis’ Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), FDA approved genetically engineered immune cells, would charge $475,000 per patient, will use Programs that Payers will pay only for Responding Patients 

FDA has approved the world’s first CAR-T therapy, Novartis for Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) and Gilead’s $12 billion buy of Kite Pharma, no approved drug and Canakinumab for Lung Cancer (may be?)

FDA: CAR-T therapy outweigh its risks tisagenlecleucel, manufactured by Novartis of Basel – 52 out of 63 participants — 82.5% — experienced overall remissions – young patients with Leukaemia [ALL]

‘Landmark FDA approval bolsters personalized medicine’ by Edward Abrahams, PhD, President, PMC

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In 2018, FDA approved an all-time record of 62 new therapeutic drugs (NTDs) [Not including diagnostic imaging agents, included are combination products with at least one new molecular entity as an active ingredient] with average Peak Sales per NTD $1.2Billion.

Posted in Drug Development Process, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, Pharmaceutical Analytics, Pharmaceutical Drug Discovery, Pharmaceutical Industry Competitive Intelligence, Pharmaceutical R&D Investment on January 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »

In 2018, FDA approved an all-time record of 62 new therapeutic drugs (NTDs) [Not including diagnostic imaging agents, included are combination products with at least one new molecular entity as an active ingredient] with average Peak Sales per NTD $1.2Billion.

 

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

BIOBUSINESS BRIEFS

 

2018 FDA approvals hit all-time high — but average value slips again

In 2018, the FDA approved an all-time record of 62 new therapeutic drugs (NTDs; see Fig. 1 for the definition and the difference compared with new molecular entities). This is consistent with the increase we predicted last year (Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 17, 87; 2018) and the overall resurgence of R&D in the last 5 years, with an average of 51 approvals per year in this period even with a low count in 2016. This is substantially more than the average of 31 approvals per year in the period 2000–2013 (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 | FDA approvals of new therapeutic drugs and aggregate projected peak global annual sales: 2000–2018. We analysed 2018 FDA approvals of new therapeutic drugs (NTDs), defined as new molecular entities approved by the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), but with two adjustments: first, we excluded diagnostic imaging agents; and second, we included combination products with at least one new molecular entity as an active ingredient. The analysis is based exclusively on approvals by the FDA and the year in which the first indication approval took place. All peak sales values were obtained from EvaluatePharma and were inflation-adjusted to 2018 using standard global GDP-based inflators sourced from the Economist Intelligence Unit. To arrive at peak sales for each NTD, we reviewed both historical actual sales as well as the full range of forecast sales that are available from EvaluatePharma and selected the highest value. Sources: EvaluatePharma, FDA and Boston Consulting Group analysis.

SOURCE

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41573-019-00004-z

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Innovators in Therapeutics: John Maraganore, the CEO of Alnylam, and Sara Nochur, Alnylam’s Senior VP Regulatory Affairs, November 15, 2018, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM, HMS

Posted in FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, tagged on October 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Innovators in Therapeutics: John Maraganore, the CEO of Alnylam, and Sara Nochur, Alnylam’s Senior VP Regulatory Affairs, November 15, 2018, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM, HMS

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

 

Innovators in Therapeutics, a Student Speaker Series

by Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science

Free

Actions and Detail Panel

Innovators in Therapeutics, a Student Speaker Series

Thu, November 15, 2018, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM EST

LOCATION

Cannon Room, Building C, Harvard Medical School

240 Longwood Ave

Boston, MA 02115

View Map

 

Free

 

REGISTER

Event Information

DESCRIPTION

Please join us for the Innovators in Therapeutics student speaker series organized by the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science and the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science. The first installment of this series will feature John Maraganore, the CEO of Alnylam, and Sara Nochur, Alnylam’s Senior Vice President for Regulatory Affairs. Dr. Maraganore and Dr. Nochur will describe Alnylam’s path through development and FDA approval of the first RNAi therapeutic, ONPATTRO™ (patisiran), for the treatment of polyneuropathy of hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis. Dr. Maraganore and Dr. Nochur will focus on the regulatory science aspects of gaining approval for this innovative therapeutic.

Prior to the seminar, please join us for a networking session that brings together faculty, students and trainees who are interested in translational research, pharmacology, biotechnology, and regulatory science. Following the speaking program, there will be a small group discussion for students and trainees to engage directly with the expert about the topic at hand. Participation in the small group discussion is limited to students who register and are confirmed prior to the event.

This event is free and open to the Boston research community. Please help us to plan by RSVPing here!

 

AGENDA

4:30 – 5:00pm: Pre-event reception (outside Cannon Room)

5:00 – 5:45pm: Innovators in Therapeutics with Alnylam’s John Maraganore & Sara Nochur (Cannon Room)

5:45 – 6:15pm: [Limited Space] Student and Trainee Q&A with John Maraganore & Sara Nochur (Folin Wu Room)

SOURCE

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/innovators-in-therapeutics-a-student-speaker-series-tickets-50806305026

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Skin Regeneration Therapy One of First Tissue Engineering Products Evaluated by FDA

Posted in 21st Century Cures Act, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, FDA, CE Mark & Global Regulatory Affairs: process management and strategic planning - GCP, GLP, ISO 14155, Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, tagged , , , , , on January 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Skin Regeneration Therapy One of First Tissue Engineering Products Evaluated by FDA

Reporter: Irina Robu, PhD

Under the provisions of 21st Century Cures Act the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved StrataGraft regenerative skin tissue as the first product designated as a Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) produced by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. StrataGraft is shaped using unmodified NIKS cells grown under standard operating procedures since the continuous NIKS skin cell line has been thoroughly characterized. StrataGraft products are virus-free, non-tumorigenic, and offer batch-to-batch genetic consistency.

Passed in 2016, the 21st Century act allows FDA to grant accelerated review approval to products which meet an RMAT designation. The RMAT designation includes debates of whether priority review and/or accelerated approval would be suitable based on intermediate endpoints that would be reasonably likely to predict long-term clinical benefit.

The designation includes products

  • defined as a cell therapy, therapeutic tissue engineering product, human cell and tissue product, or any combination product using such therapies or products;
  • intended to treat, modify, reverse, or cure a serious or life-threatening disease or condition; and
  • preliminary clinical evidence indicates the drug has the potential to address unmet medical needs for such disease or condition.

According to Steven Romano, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President, Mallinckrodt “We are very pleased the FDA has determined StrataGraft meets the criteria for RMAT designation, as this offers the possibility of priority review and/or accelerated approval. The company tissue-based therapy is under evaluation in a Phase 3 trial to assess its efficacy and safety in the advancement of autologous skin regeneration of complex skin defects due to thermal burns that contain intact dermal elements.

SOURCE

https://www.rdmag.com/news/2017/07/skin-regeneration-therapy-one-first-be-evaluated-fda

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