Thoughts on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recently issued biosimilar guidance documents? The time to act is now. As described in our earlier post , FDA must provide the public an opportunity to comment on the three recently issued biosimilars draft guidances. 42 USC 262(k)(8)(B)(i). As described in the announcement notices in the Federal
Monthly Archives: February 2012
FDA’s Long-Awaited Biosimilars Guidances—The Prologue to Biosimilars in the U.S. has been published
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released three draft Guidances on implementation of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009. The Q&A, Scientific Considerations, and Quality Guidances cover the overall framework for biosimilar application requirements as envisioned by FDA. Notably, FDA has deferred guidance on how to establish interchangeability. FDA emphasizes a “step-wise”
EMA regulatory approval changes for biosimilars on the horizon in the E.U.?
As mentioned in a previous post, the EMA set the standard for regulatory approval of biosimilars* with the adoption of their overarching general guideline in 2005 (CHMP/437/04 — PDF), followed shortly thereafter by guidelines on quality issues (EMEA/CHMP/BWP/49348/2005 — PDF) and on non-clinical and clinical issues (EMEA/CHMP/BMWP/42832/2005 — PDF). The pathway for biosimilar approval was
Biosimilars, biosimilarity—what does ‘highly similar’ mean?
It is largely up to the FDA. In the U.S., what constitutes “highly similar” in the context of biosimilars is ultimately up to how the U.S. Food and Drug Admininstration applies the statutory language under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (PDF). Demonstration that a biological product is “highly similar” to its