Regulatory Affairs

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.

The FDA has released its 2013 report to Congress regarding delays caused by 505(q) petitions. As most of you know, a 505(q) petition was created by Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007 to require certain response times to petitions submitted to the FDA that would potentially delay the approval of a 505(j) or a 505(b)(2) application. Congress took this action because FDA response times to Citizen Petitions sometimes took years and industry complained that these delays in response caused delays in approvals for ANDA and (b)(2) applications.
FDA has done very well since the FDAAA in meeting the timeframes for response.

CBS Morning Rounds recently ran a piece on the soaring cost of certain generic drug prices. Despite the potential divisiveness of the topic, the piece was very balanced…The CBS piece cites potential reasons certain price increases have occurred as a decrease in the amount of competition for a particular drug product, temporary exit from the product market due to manufacturing problems, or decreases in the supply of active ingredients.

With an anemic start to the month (only 3 ANDA approvals through 10/26/14), the Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) kicked it into high gear during the last days of the month to end the month with 31 total final ANDA approvals.

Remember when you only had to call to OGD to get ANDA statuses? Remember when these was a chemistry contact, a bioequivalence contact, a labeling contact, and a micro contact? Well, now, not only do you have to try to figure out who your contact is, but what you can all them about. The regulatory Project Manager in the Office of Generic Drugs is your primary point of contact for your ANDA. But now you also need to know who your “Quality” contact is in the Office of Pharmaceutical Quality’s (OPQ) Office of Programs and Regulatory Operations (OPRO). In addition, you need to learn a whole bunch of new acronyms!