FDA
With CBER director Vinay Prasad set to depart the agency at the end of the month, a coalition of patient groups and biotech executives penned a letter imploring the Trump administration to “restore regulatory clarity” for rare disease therapies. Experts on a BioSpace panel last week also acknowledged the challenges faced by a more stringent FDA.
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Draft guidance, issued by the FDA last week, could remove ambiguity and uncertainty that may have so far limited uptake of new approach methodologies, experts told BioSpace, particularly emphasizing the agency’s recommendations around defining NAMs’ regulatory purpose.
The FDA’s Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program, unveiled in June 2025, is “shrouded in secrecy,” Democratic representative Jake Auchincloss said last month, as regulatory and biopharma leaders try to decode the criteria for investigational or approved drugs to receive a voucher.
Although FDA Commissioner Marty Makary promised “an exciting treatment” for autism, what the agency delivered was a label expansion for leucovorin to treat the ultrarare cerebral folate deficiency. The regulatory process, which relied on a literature review rather than new evidence, stands in contrast to recent rare disease rejections in which the FDA cited a need for more rigorous evidence.
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Avlayah is the first Hunter syndrome therapy approved to address the condition’s neurologic complications, according to Tracy Beth Høeg, acting director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
While ersodetug missed the Phase 3 primary endpoint of a reduction in hypoglycemia events, Rezolute argued that this goal was confounded in part by behavioral factors. The FDA acknowledged the validity of this argument.
The FDA detected 14 cases of vitamin B6 deficiency–linked seizures and two deaths in patients with Parkinson’s disease taking carbidopa/levodopa drugs. Both AbbVie and Novartis market levodopa-based products.
At its peak, Imcivree’s sales in hypothalamic obesity could reach over $2 billion worldwide, according to analysts at Stifel.
With the approval of Wegovy HD, Novo Nordisk joins Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim and USAntibiotics as beneficiaries of the FDA’s Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program, which aims to review products that align with certain national priorities in less than two months.
Sarepta Therapeutics says the FDA has agreed to review a regulatory package for Amondys 45 and Vyondys 53 after they failed a confirmatory trial, but whether the agency will agree to approve them is still unknown.
A year of significant policy change at the FDA brought momentum and scrutiny into the new year. As 2026 gets underway, biopharma companies are responding to sweeping vaccine changes while concerns surface about the politicization of the agency.
Icotyde, co-developed by Johnson & Johnson and Protagonist Therapeutics, is backed by data from the Phase 3 ICONIC program, which, among other advantages, showed significant superiority over Bristol Myers Squibb’s Sotyktu.
Heath Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to overhaul vaccine policy are likely illegal, a Massachusetts District Court Judge ruled; Structure’s GLP-1 weight loss pill succeeds in Phase 2 while Rhythm’s Phase 3 basket trial fails to find the beat; Eli Lilly warns of potential safety risks of taking compounded tirzepatide, and Novo Nordisk is hit with an FDA warning letter regarding adverse events potentially linked to Ozempic.
In its complete response letter, the FDA said Aldeyra had failed to demonstrate reproxalap’s efficacy in adequate and well-controlled studies. The FDA previously turned the candidate away in November 2023 and April 2025.