On December 11, 2014, Dr Kathleen (Cook) Uhl, Acting Director, Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) sent the following memo to all OGD and CDER Ops staff announcing some personnel changes and revisions in the way OGD will be approaching the significant backlog of applications and how it will approach the GDUFA goals it must meet.
The generic industry has been having a hard time (to say the least) in obtaining samples of certain Reference Listed Drugs (RLDs) that have Risk Evaluation and Mitigations Strategies (REMS) with elements to assure safe use (ETASU) upon which to conduct the necessary bioequivalence (BE) studies to support ANDA approval. Today, FDA has published a draft guidance entitled, “How to Obtain a Letter from FDA Stating that Bioequivalence Study Protocols Contain Safety Protections Comparable to Applicable REMS for RLD”.
It is clear that the Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) wants to assure that first-time generic submissions also translate into first-time generic approvals. In FY 2013, OGD approved a total of 440 ANDAs. Of that total, there were 108 ANDAs reported on the OGD First-Time Generic Drug Approval lists for the year. So it appears that OGD’s goal of getting first time approvals to the American public as quickly as possible at least translates into the percentage of first-time generic approvals (e.g., 1 in 4 ANDA approvals in FY 2013 was for a first-time generic approval of the product or 25%).
nother page in the history of the generic drug program turns at the end of this month. Bob West, former Deputy Director of the Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) will retire at the end of this month after about 37 years of government service.
After checking the generic drug approvals on FDA’s website today, I was disappointed to see that OGD only approved 11 ANDAs in the month of November. Prior to this, the lowest month was July 2014 when OGD approved only 18 ANDAs. This comes after October’s encouraging numbers, with OGD issuing 45 ANDA approvals.
Just three days before Thanksgiving, the FDA issued two Final Rules requiring caloric content on menus and food from vending machines. While the Rules go into effect in a year for menu items and 2 years for food from vending machines, release of the Final Rule just before the holiday makes me cringe.
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.
