According to an editorial in the New York Times, “For several years the F.D.A. has been lowering the standards by which it decides whether new medications are safe and useful.” Balderdash.
Is the FDA approving drugs too fast or not fast enough? Are they demanding too much data or not enough? There isn’t any dearth of commentary supporting either proposition. There is, however, no evidence to support the sound bite that the FDA is approving “everything,” or that every product that requests an expedited pathway receives it, or that “all” those that do receive an expedited pathway designation get approved, or that every product that does reach the market via an expedited approval is in some way more dangerous than other medicines. Some particulars:
* An analysis of every product (364) requesting a Breakthrough Therapy designation (from July 2012 – June 2016) shows that CDER granted 133 (37%) of those requests, denied 182 (50%), and the sponsor withdrew their request 49 times (13%) before the agency made a decision. Hardly a regulatory carte blanche.
* In 2013, the first full year of the Breakthrough Designation, the FDA approved 3 new drugs, 14 in 2014, and 9 in 2015. Hardly an onslaught of new medicines.
* Among 22 drugs with 24 indications granted accelerated approval by the FDA in 2009-2013, efficacy was often confirmed in post-approval trials a minimum of 3 years after approval, although confirmatory trials and preapproval trials had similar design elements, including reliance on surrogate measures as outcomes.Unsafe? Not effective? “Dangerous? A new “wild west” FDA? No.
New ways of understanding and interpreting how data evolves over time, upends the traditional frame of regulatory stasis and opens up the opportunity to embrace a more 21st century approach to the regulation of healthcare technologies.
Is the FDA approving drugs too fast or not fast enough? Are they demanding too much data or not enough? There isn’t any dearth of commentary supporting either proposition. There is, however, no evidence to support the sound bite that the FDA is approving “everything,” or that every product that requests an expedited pathway receives it, or that “all” those that do receive an expedited pathway designation get approved, or that every product that does reach the market via an expedited approval is in some way more dangerous than other medicines. Some particulars:
* An analysis of every product (364) requesting a Breakthrough Therapy designation (from July 2012 – June 2016) shows that CDER granted 133 (37%) of those requests, denied 182 (50%), and the sponsor withdrew their request 49 times (13%) before the agency made a decision. Hardly a regulatory carte blanche.
* In 2013, the first full year of the Breakthrough Designation, the FDA approved 3 new drugs, 14 in 2014, and 9 in 2015. Hardly an onslaught of new medicines.
* Among 22 drugs with 24 indications granted accelerated approval by the FDA in 2009-2013, efficacy was often confirmed in post-approval trials a minimum of 3 years after approval, although confirmatory trials and preapproval trials had similar design elements, including reliance on surrogate measures as outcomes.Unsafe? Not effective? “Dangerous? A new “wild west” FDA? No.
New ways of understanding and interpreting how data evolves over time, upends the traditional frame of regulatory stasis and opens up the opportunity to embrace a more 21st century approach to the regulation of healthcare technologies.
