On July 25, 2024, the FDA published a notice establishing a public docket for commenting to obtain information to assist the FDA in assessing how best to advance the development of new biosimilar products, as part of the Biosimilar Use Free Amendments of 2022 (“BsUFA III”). The FDA specifically seeks “input on whether biosimilar product development would be best served by focusing on product class-specific guidance documents that address common development issues that apply to a broad class of products, or by developing product-specific guidance documents.”
As part of the BsUFA III amendments, the FDA updated its biosimilar action plan and is revisiting how best to advance the development of new biosimilar products. For the time being, the FDA asks two questions.
- Which would be more useful for accelerating biosimilar development: guidance documents that focus on a particular product (product-specific guidance), or guidance documents that are cross-cutting for a class of biosimilar products (product class-specific guidance) such as monoclonal antibodies?
- Should FDA focus on development of guidance documents for biological products (or classes of biological products) for which there are no approved biosimilars? Or would it be useful for FDA to continue to develop guidance on biosimilar development programs even after one or more biosimilar products have been approved for that biological product or class of biological products?
Comments, data, or other information should be submitted by October 23, 2024.