Just about every federal program and affected interest group is pressing for relief from the 8% across-the-board cuts in funding imposed by the budget sequestration mandate. Recent fast action on Capitol Hill to curb personnel furloughs of air traffic controllers by the Federal Aviation Administration, though, has spurred lobbying for similar treatment across many fronts. Read more »

FDA has come down on the side of reducing abuse of opioid medications, over encouraging wider availability of low-cost painkiller meds. The agency decided to block generic versions of the original OxyContin formulation, which is fairly easy to manipulate by illegal users. The aim is to help halt the epidemic of prescription drug abuse raging across the country. FDA’s decision leaves the market open to Purdue Pharma’s newer version of the drug, which the agency determined has features that make it more difficult to abuse via injection or snorting. Read more »

The Obama administration’s budget plan for fiscal year 2014 apparently assumes that the pharmaceutical industry can support Medicare and other health programs through changes in drug coverage and payments. It also relies on industry fees to keep FDA up and running. Meanwhile, FDA and other public health agencies are contending with the sequestration mandate, which is taking another bite out of government programs and payment policies. Read more »

After less than a year on the job, the head of FDA’s Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) has announced his departure, a sign that all is not well with plans for major organizational changes at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). Read more »

The greatly feared federal budget sequestration mandate went into effect Mar. 1, 2013, and, initially, the impact was fairly muted. The stock market soared, employment rose and government workers continued on their jobs. Federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), launched initiatives to comply with the mandated 5% across-the-board cut in spending (in reality a 9% cut that exceeds $200 million) to minimize the impact on basic operations. That means curbs on training and staff travel, no new hires and a delay in launching new programs. Read more »

The growing dangers from substandard and falsified medicines around the world has prompted a blue-ribbon panel formed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to call for clear international standards for higher quality medical products,  plus an electronic tracking system in the US to uncover bogus products in the supply chain. Read more »

Federal law enforcers are looking hard at pharmaceutical manufacturers that put consumers at risk by cutting corners on product quality and safety and violating current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs). The Department of Justice (DOJ) is “taking an especially hard look” at situations that compromise drug safety, identity and quality, explained DOJ deputy assistant attorney general Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong at this week’s CBI Compliance Conference in Washington, D.C. Read more »

In the dog-eat-dog world of federal deficit reduction in the US, there seems to be one health-related spending cut with broad bi-partisan support:  require drug companies to give the federal government “a better deal on medications for low-income people on Medicare.” Nearly 70% of respondents  back this strategy, according to a survey sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. That’s far more than the mere 32% who want to raise Medicare premiums or the 26% who support a higher Medicare eligibility age (67, up from 65 years). Read more »

A new international agreement to reduce mercury contamination of air and water was recently adopted by 140 countries, without a proposal that threatened to limit access to vaccines in much of the world. The credit goes to public health authorities and medical experts who challenged a provision blocking production of vaccines with the preservative thimerosal, the formulation necessary for efficient vaccine distribution in developing countries. Banning thimerosal in vaccines “would be a tragedy” that put millions of children at risk, stated GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines & Immunization) director Seth Berkley in the New York Times (Jan. 17, 2013). Read more »

Biopharmaceutical companies are touting their huge investment in R&D, which has filled the drug pipeline with more potential first-in-class medicines, including orphan drugs, personalized medicines and new therapies based on novel scientific strategies. A report by the Analysis Group for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) documents more than 5,000 new medicines in the pipeline globally, many for untreated diseases and life-threatening conditions. The promise is that this more robust pipeline will lead to more new critical therapies for patients. Read more »