Agency wants to ensure patients ‘aren’t unnecessarily or unfairly scared off or intimidated’ from taking biosimilars, Office of Therapeutic Biologics and Biosimilars' acting policy director Eva Temkin tells the FDA/CMS Summit; Temkin says recent guidance on biosimilar insulins shows agency is trying to be flexible on interchangeability data requirements.

AstraZeneca and Merck seek to add a pancreatic cancer indication for olaparib, while Merck has hopes of broadening pembrolizumab’s use in bladder cancer; two-day Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee meeting also will include reviews of Celgene’s luspatercept in myelodysplastic syndromes-related anemia and Epizyme’s tazemetostat for epithelioid sarcoma.

Clinicians and sponsors want the US FDA to open up antibacterial labeling to include more data on efficacy against resistant pathogens and in other body sites, but regulatory restrictions may require a workaround in the form of rapid, peer-to-peer communications about the data on new products.

US FDA’s 'consistent with labeling' guidance prompts more sponsors to consider comparative promotional claims, but any minimization of product safety issues still runs the risk of enforcement, legal experts say; Office of Prescription Drug Promotion’s research agenda on consumer understanding of Rx ad claims could result in an attempt to limit comparative claims.

Agency is targeting January 2020 for release of controversial proposed rule to allow importation of certain types of prescription drugs from Canada; although most Rx drug-related proposed and final rules on the Fall 2019 regulatory agenda are making repeat appearances, a final rule on electronic distribution of prescribing information has fallen off the list.

Focus of negotiations with agency will be on breadth of population encompassed by a cardiovascular risk reduction indication; most advisory committee members favored a broad claim for secondary and primary prevention reflecting the REDUCE-IT trial population, but some strongly opposed an indication that includes patients without established CV disease.