Drug Approval Standards

FDA’s OTC office director details a 2023 guidance as opening doors for NRT innovation at recent public meeting, but researchers and an industry executive note the most recent approval in the US for an innovative NRT was more than 20 years ago and say FDA isn’t allowing sufficient flexibility for approvals of new products or indications other than cessation related to quitting smoking.

FDA tobacco programs chief emphasizes moving smokers to lower risk alternatives and NIDA executive encourages proposals for e-cigarettes as nicotine replacement treatments. FDA also seizes $76m in unauthorized e-cigarettes.

Qnovia notes NRT inhalation product recently received investigational new drug clearance from FDA as agency and NIH say innovation needed smoking cessation to help improve rate of success for quitting the habit that kills around 500,000 US consumers annually.

Requests for “enforcement actions are not within the scope of FDA’s citizen petition procedures,” CDER says, rejecting petition dosing device firm Parenteral Technologies submitted as it prepares for workshop on Pediatric Research Equity Act requirements for OTC NDA sponsors.

The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee endorsed a new plan to update pandemic influenza vaccines “inter-pandemic,” but encouraged the agency to consider how to make the approach feasible for novel vaccine technologies.  

NDAs for additional OTC products containing acetaminophen and/or NSAIDs and indicated for use by children between 2 and less than 12 years old would trigger compliance by application sponsors with the act passed in 2003 to address lack of pediatric use information in drug labeling.

Dalzanemdor missed its primary endpoint in a Phase II Parkinson’s study, Sage announced, following April’s Phase II miss in Alzheimer’s. Phase II data in Huntington’s are still expected this year.

Phase III success positions Scholar Rock’s selective myostatin inhibitor for regulatory filings in early 2025. Analysts see a blockbuster opportunity for additive therapy in spinal muscular atrophy.

Regenerative Processing replaces nozzle to prevent backflow for its Regener-Eyes drops but FDA warning states numerous questions about sterility at the firm’s plant and about its procedures and systems for preventing microbial contamination.

Avidity hopes to complete enrollment in mid-2025 for an ongoing Phase III trial of its antibody-oligonucleotide conjugate in myotonic dystrophy type 1, which has no approved drug therapy.