Policy
As Marty Makary nears the end of his first month on the job, the FDA Commissioner sat down for two interviews, offering statements that alternatively contradict and jibe with reported events.
FEATURED STORIES
Like they say about the weather in Iceland, if you don’t like an action taken by the new administration, wait five minutes; it’ll probably change. The markets, it seems, don’t react kindly to that kind of policymaking.
After the gutting of the Department of Health and Human Services, fears mount about the future direction of the FDA—with regulatory experts predicting delays in drug approvals and greater influence of political appointees.
As the biopharma industry grapples with the uncertain macro environment brought on by the new administration, CEOs, regulators and many others speak out.
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In an interview with former Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary introduced a new mechanism-driven pathway that could be leveraged by rare disease therapies while saying that autism could potentially be driven by certain environmental factors.
Losing the FDA’s senior negotiators would slow the renewal of the user fee programs “considerably,” according to policy and regulatory expert Steven Grossman.
Industry representatives will still be allowed at these meetings, but they will no longer have a spot on the advisory committee.
The Health and Human Services Secretary said that he will find and eliminate the cause of autism by September, an idea that suggests how little he knows about the condition.
GeoVax was using its HHS contract to develop its next-generation multi-antigen COVID-19 vaccine, which is in Phase IIb development.
Despite these cuts, the FDA should be able to stay above a “trigger” level that would prevent it from collecting fees from the pharma industry and deprive it of approximately half of its annual funding, according to The Washington Post.
In the wake of unprecedented workforce cuts at the FDA, former Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and an unnamed former CBER director spoke to analysts about potential implications for drug review timelines and agency morale.
Playing both sides of trade war, pharma companies are asking for certain compensations for scientific innovation and a smoother regulatory framework.
Analysts are “cautiously optimistic” about Trump’s executive order, noting that changes to the IRA drug price negotiation program will still require Congressional action before being implemented.
Trump could use the findings of the probe to impose certain trade restrictions on pharma products, including tariffs.