The FDA: Too Loose, Or Appropriately Brave?

The topic of the various "accelerated review" options at the FDA has come up here before. Last month JAMA ran an opinion piece suggesting that the agency has gone too far. (Here's the Pharmalot take on the article). This, of course, is the bind the agency is always in. Similar to the narrow window with an anticoagulant drug (preventing clots versus encouraging hemorrhages), the FDA is constantly getting complaints that they're stifling innovation by setting regulatory barriers too high, and that they're killing patients by letting too many things through. It's an unwinnable situation - under what conditions could neither camp feel wronged? The FDA defended its review procedures at the time, but now (according to BioCentury Extra, a more emphatic statement has been made: FDA's Richard Pazdur, director of CDER's Office of Hematology & Oncology Products (OHOP), made it clear at an FDA briefing on personalized medicine on Monday that the agency is willing to take risks to get drugs for serious and life-threatening diseases to patients quickly. Pazdur said, "If we are taking appropriate risks in accelerated approval, some drugs will come off market, some will have restricted labeling." If that doesn't ever happen, "we probably aren't taking the appropriate risks," he said. It reminds me of the advice that if your manuscripts are all getting accepted, then you aren't sending them to good enough journals. I agree with Pazdur on this one, and I wish that this attitude was more wid...
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: Clinical Trials Source Type: blogs