Last week, FDA announced the Biosimilar User Fee Act (BsUFA) rates for the 2019 fiscal year, which runs from October 1, 2018 through September 30, 2019. The FDA determined these rates pursuant to the Food and Drug Administration Reauthorization Act (FDARA), signed into law on August 18, 2017. Among other…
On July 20, 2018, Pfizer issued a press release reporting that the U.S. FDA has approved Nivestym™ (filgrastim-aafi), Pfizer’s proposed biosimilar of Neupogen®, for all eligible indications of the reference product. Pfizer states that “NIVESTYM is expected to be available in the U.S. at a significant discount to the current…
Today, the U.S. FDA released its Biosimilar Action Plan (BAP), which outlines the Administration’s proposed next steps to help reduce the costs of healthcare by expediting the development of robust biosimilar competition and market penetration, while encouraging innovation and maintaining incentives for investing in future products. In remarks delivered at…
In a series of tweets on July 8, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., announced that the FDA “will soon unveil a comprehensive Biosimilars Action Plan (BAP) that will include policies and actions to improve the efficiency of FDA’s review of biosimilar marketing applications and increase…
The FDA recently announced the availability of a final guidance for industry titled “Assessing User Fees Under the Biosimilar User Fee Amendments of 2017.” This guidance concerns the implementation of BsUFA II, which as we previously reported, extends FDA’s authority to collect user fees from fiscal year (FY) 2018 to…
The FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) is launching a new program called INTERACT (INitial Targeted Engagement for Regulatory Advice on CBER ProducTs). INTERACT meetings will replace pre-pre-IND meetings, but not formal product-specific meetings, such as pre-IND or pre-BLA meetings. According to the announcement, sponsors will be able to…
As we previously reported, in September 2017 FDA issued draft guidance entitled Statistical Approaches to Evaluate Analytical Similarity that “describes the type[s] of information a sponsor of a proposed biosimilar product should obtain” to support a showing of analytical similarity to a licensed reference product biologic. Today, FDA withdrew this draft guidance….
On June 4, 2018, FDA announced the availability of a new draft guidance on formal meetings with FDA concerning the development and review of biosimilar or interchangeable biological products. The draft guidance, titled “Formal Meetings Between the FDA and Sponsors or Applicants of BsUFA Products,” is available here. FDA also…
Today, the U.S. FDA announced that it has approved Mylan’s aBLA for Fulphila™ (pegfilgrastim-jmdb), a biosimilar of Amgen’s Neulasta®. This approval marks the eleventh FDA licensure of a biosimilar product under the BPCIA regulatory scheme, following last month’s approval of Pfizer’s Retacrit™ (epoetin alfa-epbx), and the first time the…
For certain drugs with serious risks, the FDA may require drug developers to submit a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) to ensure that the benefits of a drug or biologic outweigh its risks. For an overview on REMS click here. We have previously reported that FDA received numerous inquiries from generic…