Regulatory Affairs

In a follow-up to my post on this issue early this morning, GPhA announced that 21 pharmacy groups were signatory to a letter to Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, imploring her to reconsider the Proposed Rule on labeling changes in its current form.

The good news is that there is some regulatory relief for the down-regulation of some changes from supplements to Annual Report notifications; the bad news is that the industry will likely spend as much time figuring out the Guidance and trying to position changes such that they can reasonably be read to be covered by the document as trying to get a Regulatory Project Manager on the phone at OGD.

The FDA’s Proposed Rule Supplemental Applications: Proposed Labeling Changes for Approved Drugs and Biological Products occupied the podium time of many speakers at this year’s GPhA Annual Meeting and was clearly on the minds of all attendees. Ralph G. Neas, CEO and President of GPhA, was to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on Monday March 3 to explain just what a detrimental impact on the generic industry the Proposed Rule, as currently written, will have on the generic drug industry, patients, and healthcare providers. Unfortunately, the weather postponed the hearing. An article in Insidehealthpolicy.com today was entitled “Democrats: Concerns About Drug Costs Under FDA Generic Labeling Rule ‘Unfounded’”. Well those Democrats should get off Capitol Hill and get out to the drug companies, the pharmacies, talk to healthcare providers instead of speaking or listening only to the Plaintiff’s bar.

In a Federal Register Notice that published on February 27, 2014 (see here), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced the proposed Rulemaking to place all hydrocodone-containing combination products into the more restrictive Schedule II category from Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. This process has been going on for several years and now looks like it will swiftly move towards becoming reality. This move has been hotly debated among consumer groups, healthcare providers, drug abuse experts and the like. FDA held a public advisory meeting in January 2013 to meet the requirement established by one of the provisions of Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012 (FDASIA). The Advisory Committee meeting was a compromise reached in FDASIA, as changing the schedule of these products was one thing that the Act’s sponsors had considered. The Committee that was charged with making a recommendation voted 19-10 in favor of the rescheduling effort.

Some 4+ years after the most successful piece of legislation, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act (more commonly known as the Hatch-Waxman Act), there was trouble in paradise. In late 1987, some firms noticed that certain applicants began receiving reviews and approvals of their ANDAs faster than they did. A simple investigation lead to evidence of wrongdoing by an FDA employee and lead to a widespread and expanded investigation into the industry, and uncovered wholesale fraud at a number of companies and exposed other FDA employees guilty of wrongful acts. This was the beginning of the Generic Drug scandal, which prompted the investigation of the entire industry by Congressman Dingell and two congressional investigators.

Then FDA is looking for you! The implementation of the Generic Drug User Fee Act (GDUFA) has created about new 930 positions in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). With first year hiring over, there are still about 600 positions left to fill and FDA is aggressively recruiting.