Photo by Esther Dyson
Preparing drug for a trial
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has unveiled a plan to eliminate the agency’s existing backlog of orphan designation requests and ensure timely responses to all new requests with firm deadlines.
The agency’s Orphan Drug Modernization Plan comes a week after FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb committed to eliminating the backlog within 90 days and responding to all new requests for designation within 90 days of receipt during his testimony before a Senate subcommittee.
As authorized under the Orphan Drug Act, the Orphan Drug Designation Program provides orphan status to drugs and biologics intended for the treatment, diagnosis, or prevention of rare diseases, which are generally defined as diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the US.
Orphan designation qualifies a product’s developer for various development incentives, including tax credits for clinical trial costs, relief from prescription drug user fee if the indication is for a rare disease or condition, and eligibility for 7 years of marketing exclusivity if the product is approved.
A request for orphan designation is one step that can be taken in the development process and is different than the filing of a marketing application with the FDA.
Currently, the FDA has about 200 orphan drug designation requests that are pending review. The number of orphan drug designation requests has steadily increased over the past 5 years.
In 2016, the FDA’s Office of Orphan Products Development received 568 new requests for designation – more than double the number of requests received in 2012.
The FDA says this increased interest in the program is a positive development for patients with rare diseases, and, with the Orphan Drug Modernization Plan, the FDA is committing to advancing the program to ensure it can efficiently and adequately review these requests.
“People who suffer with rare diseases are too often faced with no or limited treatment options, and what treatment options they have may be quite expensive due, in part, to significant costs of developing therapies for smaller populations,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD.
“Congress gave us tools to incentivize the development of novel therapies for rare diseases, and we intend to use these resources to their fullest extent in order to ensure Americans get the safe and effective medicines they need, and that the process for developing these innovations is as modern and efficient as possible.”
Among the elements of the Orphan Drug Modernization Plan, the FDA will deploy a Backlog SWAT team comprised of senior, experienced reviewers with significant expertise in orphan drug designation. The team will focus solely on the backlogged applications, starting with the oldest requests.
The agency will also employ a streamlined Designation Review Template to increase consistency and efficiency of its reviews.
In addition, the Orphan Drug Designation Program will look to collaborate within the agency’s medical product centers to create greater efficiency, including conducting joint reviews with the Office of Pediatric Therapeutics to review rare pediatric disease designation requests.
To ensure all future requests receive a response within 90 days of receipt, the FDA will take a multifaceted approach.
These efforts include, among other new steps:
- Reorganizing the review staff to maximize expertise and improve workload efficiencies
- Better leveraging the expertise across the FDA’s medical product centers
- Establishing a new FDA Orphan Products Council that will help address scientific and regulatory issues to ensure the agency is applying a consistent approach to regulating orphan drug products and reviewing designation requests.
The FDA is planning for the backlog to be eliminated by mid-September.
The Orphan Drug Modernization Plan is the first element of several efforts the FDA plans to undertake under its new “Medical Innovation Development Plan,” which is aimed at ensuring the FDA’s regulatory tools and policies are modern, risk-based, and efficient.
The goal of the plan is to seek ways the FDA can help facilitate the development of safe, effective, and transformative medical innovations that have the potential to significantly impact disease and reduce overall healthcare costs.
