Five years after enactment of the BPCIA and following its first biosimilar approval, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized its initial guidances describing the scientific and regulatory expectations for biosimilar approval under the 351(k) pathway.
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Last month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first U.S. biosimilar, Zarxio (filgrastim-sndz). Since the positive vote of FDA’s Oncologic’s Drugs Advisory Committee at its January meeting, approval of Sandoz’s biosimilar to Amgen’s Neupogen for all 5 Neupogen indications was anticipated. This landmark event comes almost exactly 5 years after passage of…
The Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board (MEB) published a new position on biosimilars, in which it accepts substitution or interchangeability of biosimilars under certain conditions.
The MEB’s revised position on biosimilars was published on 31 March 2015 and replaces its previous position of 2010. The 2010 position provided that patients should be kept at the same…
As biosimilar applications begin rolling in, FDA has issued two of its 2014 “promised” guidances, addressing important issues of how the agency is implementing the BPCIA: (1) what information FDA will consider to determine “first licensure” for a biologic licensed under 351(a), which is essentially a decision on eligibility for the 12-year exclusivity period provided…
Including biosimilars in the release of expected 2014 CDER draft guidance documents has sparked the public interest as industry, physicians, patients and others await additional cues on FDA’s implementation of the BPCIA. The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s 2014 agenda for new and revised draft guidances includes the following for Biosimilars:
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Not surprising after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) positive opinion for two biosimilars to Remicade (infliximab) in June, the first of these was authorized in September. Authorization of Remsima represents the first monoclonal antibody biosimilar, and the thirteenth biosimilar, authorized in the European Union.
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration is…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff will continue User Fee supported activities and vital consumer protection activities during the government shutdown. FDA staff, including review divisions and chief counsel’s office, will continue work on regulatory activities covered by user fees under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), Generic Drug User Fee Amendments (GDUFA),…
The Generic Pharmaceutical Association requests that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration assign the same non-proprietary name to a biosimilar as the one held by its reference biologic. FDA has not articulated a policy for naming of biologics, biosimilars and interchangeable biosimilars, although they asked for input on the topic in the Public Meetings and…
The European Medicines Agency (“EMA”) initiated a public consultation on a proposed revision of its Guideline on “Similar Biological Medicinal Products” (the “Biosimilars Guideline”), available at the EMA website . The 2 April 2013 proposed revision would ultimately result in a new guideline replacing the current Biosimilars Guideline adopted in October 2005.…
A collection of associations for higher education wrote to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg urging a requirement for biosimilar applicants to certify that they have complied with the information exchange and patent dispute resolution provisions of the BPCIA. The concern raised is that:
“biosmilar sponsors can effectively circumvent every patent litigation provision of the statute simply…
