Industry News

The United Kingdom’s Center for Process Innovation (CPI) is investing in a new project, Microstar, which seeks to reduce risk for formulators through the development of accelerated screening methods for predictive design.

Yusef Manufacturing Laboratories, LLC received an FDA warning letter citing CGMP violations at its Clearfield, UT facility.

AAPS elections for Executive Council will be held in June/July 2017; results announced in August.

The state is alleging that misleading marketing practices contributed to the opioid epidemic in Ohio.

The agency published an action plan to nurture innovation and drug development by SMEs.

The agency released guidance for industry regarding the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union.

The company was cited for cGMP violations at its Irvine, California facility.

The agency met with the representatives of the East African Community to discuss the creation of a networking agency.

In Lazard's Global Healthcare Leaders 2017 survey, most respondents said pricing and reimbursement were the most significant challenge, but nearly half of the pharma executives who responded see value-based pricing as having the greatest impact on the business, potentially even more than scientific breakthroughs.

FDA’s new commissioner asks staff for suggestions for fighting the opioid crisis.

The agency has given a green light to a new system for collecting and monitoring suspected adverse reactions.

A recent survey suggests that 36% of pharmaceutical companies and contract development and manufacturing companies have not started working on serialization, and that those who are working on it are focusing on basic compliance rather than potential long-term business benefits.

More stringent R&D investment requirements for PhRMA membership reduces the association ranks by 22 associate and member companies.

FDA hopes to better use global resources and avoid duplicate inspections of foreign facilities.

CPhI Worldwide announced new additions to its 2017 advisory board.

The company is expanding their April 2017 voluntary recall of phenobarbital tablets.

The agency released its report on pilot project to involve patients in the assessment of medicines.

FDA sent a warning letter to Pharmaceutic Labs, LLC for deficiencies in producing sterile drugs.

User fee reauthorizations, a hiring freeze, and opioid epidemic await the new FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

EMA and the European Commission released a biosimilars information guide for health professionals during the EC’s biosimilars conference.

The program aims to make biosimilars for the treatment of cancer more widely available in middle- and low-income countries.

The agency sent a warning letter to Sal Pharma for not disclosing information about API manufacturers to customers.

The agency has issued more than 90 warning letters over the past 10 years to companies selling fraudulent cancer treatments.

On April 28, 2017, the European Medicines Agency announced that it met with members of the heads of the National Competent Authorities (NCAs) of the member states of the European Union to discuss the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU (Brexit) and how the agency and the member states will handle the evaluation and monitoring of drugs going forward.

April 24–30, 2017 is European Immunization Week in Europe, and in a statement on the European Medicines Agency (EMA) website dated April 25, 2017, Executive Director Guido Rasi stressed the importance of vaccinations in preventing and controlling disease. Rasi acknowledged that fear created from incorrect information presented by unreliable sources has created a lack of trust in vaccines. But he highlighted that Europe monitors and records information on the safety of medicines, including vaccines.

On April 24, 2017, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and a group of executives from several big pharma companies composed an open letter to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) regarding its relocation.

A new study from the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that pairing the antidepressant amitriptyline with drugs designed to treat central nervous system diseases, enhances drug delivery to the brain by inhibiting the blood-brain barrier in rats. The blood-brain barrier serves as a natural, protective boundary, preventing most drugs from entering the brain. The research, performed in rats, appeared online April 27, 2017 in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

Companies believe that biologics and biosimilars would experience the fastest growth over the next year; there is also interest on increasing market penetration of generic drugs.