In keeping with a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will not implement a final rule removing the anti-kickback safe harbor for the rebates drug companies pay pharmacy benefit managers until Jan. 1, 2032.
In his latest effort to boost the U.S. manufacturing base, President Joe Biden is invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA) to expand the domestic production capabilities for essential medicines, medical countermeasures (MCMs) and their critical inputs.
Nearing the end of 2023, South Korea’s National Assembly approved hiked-up budgets for three of its major health care agencies. Its health policy think tank also forecast an uptick in industry exports in 2024.
Natera Inc., said it has won a preliminary injunction against Neogenomics Inc., which halts any distribution of the latter’s RaDaR (Residual Disease and Recurrence) assay for detection of residual cancer DNA. The matter is anything but closed, and Neogenomics stated that it will appeal the decision, suggesting that this dispute will roll into and play out through much of 2024.
Regulation of medical devices is always a messy and complicated task, but that has proven to be particularly true of the European Union’s (EU) Medical Device Regulation (MDR). Thanks largely to problems with the capacity of notified bodies (NBs) to review renewals of existing CE marks, patients in the EU may experience a significant dearth of medical devices over the next couple of years, a nightmare scenario that has all stakeholders scrambling for solutions.
Jiangxi Jemincare Group Co. Ltd. has reported that its wholly owned subsidiary company, Shanghai Jemincare Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., recently received approvals for clinical trials of five of its drugs in the fields of cancer, kidney and infectious diseases.
The U.S. FDA issued a complete response letter for Zealand Pharma A/S’s NDA seeking approval of dasiglucagon for the prevention of treatment of hypoglycemia in pediatric patients with congenital hyperinsulinism, citing deficiencies identified during an inspection at a third-party contract manufacturing facility.
Drug guidances are still pouring forth from the U.S. FDA as 2023 winds to an end. The latest batch deals with issues as varied as the reformulation of drug products that use carbomers manufactured with benzene, potency assurance for cellular and gene therapies, the quality of topical eye treatments, and the development of drugs and biologics for rare diseases.
As their term in office winds to a close, MEPs in the two main political groupings of the European Parliament still have huge differences of opinion over the proposed reform of the EU pharmaceutical regulation and how best to achieve the stated aims of improving patient access whilst encouraging innovation.