The FDA’s Analgesic and Anesthetic Drug Advisory Committee (AADPAC), of which I am a member, met October 12 to discuss a controversial New Drug Application (NDA) for a powerful opioid called sufentanil, manufactured by AcelRx.
Like fentanyl, sufentanil is a short-acting synthetic opioid, but approximately 5 to 10 times more potent. In the midst of the current opioid crisis, why would anyone think that the availability of another powerful opioid is a good idea?
Health Law Year in P/Review
December 12, 2017 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East AB
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
Register for this event
The Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review symposium will feature leading experts discussing major developments during 2017 and what to watch out for in 2018. The discussion at this day-long event will cover hot topics in such areas as health policy under the new administration, regulatory issues in clinical research, law at the end-of-life, patient rights and advocacy, pharmaceutical policy, reproductive health, and public health law.
Health Law Year in P/Review
December 12, 2017 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East AB
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
Register for this event
The Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review symposium will feature leading experts discussing major developments during 2017 and what to watch out for in 2018. The discussion at this day-long event will cover hot topics in such areas as health policy under the new administration, regulatory issues in clinical research, law at the end-of-life, patient rights and advocacy, pharmaceutical policy, reproductive health, and public health law.
Health Law Year in P/Review
December 12, 2017 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East AB
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
Register for this event
The Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review symposium will feature leading experts discussing major developments during 2017 and what to watch out for in 2018. The discussion at this day-long event will cover hot topics in such areas as health policy under the new administration, regulatory issues in clinical research, law at the end-of-life, patient rights and advocacy, pharmaceutical policy, reproductive health, and public health law.
Health Law Year in P/Review
December 12, 2017 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East AB
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
Register for this event
The Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review symposium will feature leading experts discussing major developments during 2017 and what to watch out for in 2018. The discussion at this day-long event will cover hot topics in such areas as health policy under the new administration, regulatory issues in clinical research, law at the end-of-life, patient rights and advocacy, pharmaceutical policy, reproductive health, and public health law.
The Federal government has wrested billions of dollars from the drug and device industry in settlements of claims that the companies broke the law by promoting their products “off-label” for uses not approved by the FDA. In response, companies have asserted that promotions are a form of speech, protected by the First Amendment. Speech regulations are especially worrisome when motivated by paternalism. This argument has received some traction in the courts, and is now getting a favorable look by the Trump administration.
I have argued (here, here, and here) that this law is not actually a speech regulation. Nor is it paternalistic. Instead, it is simply a vanilla regulation of a behavior (shipment of product in interstate commerce), which depends on various sources of evidence (including speech) as revealing whether the actor has an illicit intent (an unapproved use of the product). The pre-market approval system, which requires that companies prove safety and efficacy for all intended uses, solves a collective action problem to produce information as a public good. This is our key social mechanism for producing knowledge about safety and efficacy. If this law is unconstitutional in the off-label context, the entire pre-market approval system would seem to be as well.
In a new piece out on SSRN, my physician co-author Victor Laurion develops the example of the drug Seroquel XR, to show how a federal prosecution for off-label promotion caused the company to perform scientific research on two new indications (general anxiety disorder and major depression). A detailed discussion of the regulatory record shows how physician prescribing was improved by this public information, regardless of whether the FDA approved the new indication. In this way, the FDA protects the liberty of physicians and patients to try drugs for new uses, even while holding companies to the proof of any uses that they actually intend. The fact that the company’s intention is shown by speech evidence is immaterial. Read More
Dear Colleagues,
I am happy to announce that I have just joined the Board of Editors of the new journal “European Pharmaceutical Law Review” (EPLR). One of my first tasks is to spread the news about our “Call for Papers”. Further information is available here.
The European Pharmaceutical Law Review (EPLR) reports on key legislative developments in the EU and the Member States, and identifies and analyses important judgments that shape the interpretation and application of EU pharmaceutical law, in particular those by the European Courts, international courts and tribunals such as the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body, and higher national courts.
In order to establish itself as a forum for dialogue between different stakeholders in pharmaceutical regulation and governance, it will invite contributions from academics, practitioners, regulators and civil society representatives. Topics covered by EPLR include:
All contributions will be subject to double blind peer-review before acceptance for publication and are required to conform to the author guidelines.
We are looking forward to receive and review the first submissions!
Best wishes/ Timo
July has been a busy month for those following the controversy around off-label promotion of drugs and devices. As many on this blog know, federal law requires that prior to marketing any drug or device, companies must prove to the FDA’s satisfaction that it is safe and effective for all intended uses. If the company reveals that it intends unapproved uses, sales of the drug or device are illegal. Nonetheless, physicians can prescribe “off-label,” and companies are free to sell for those known-but-not-intended purposes.
This carefully-wrought policy may seem convoluted, but it serves important epistemic and economic purposes, as I have argued elsewhere. This month, I have a new draft paper on SSRN, assessing recent assertions of a First Amendment right to promote for uses not approved by the FDA, and consider whether such a right would be equally applicable to drugs that have no FDA-approved label at all. I worry that the entire pre-market approval regime may be at stake. Feedback on that intentionally-provocative analysis is quite welcome.
On Wednesday, two medical device company executives, were convicted of promoting a product “to deliver steroid medications to patients’ sinuses, though it was only approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for keeping sinuses open.” The prosecutors thought the case was particularly egregious, because the company had intended the broader use to deliver medicine all along, but sought to mislead the FDA, denying it the chance review the safety and efficacy of the real intended use. The jury instructions and verdict form are particularly interesting, to see how the government’s trial strategy avoids the holding of a Second Circuit case of Caronia, which overturned a conviction on First Amendment grounds. I’ll return with some analysis later. Read More
By Timo Minssen
Please find below my welcome speech at last-weeks mini-symposium on “Legal dimensions of Big Data in the Health and Life Sciences – From Intellectual Property Rights and Global Pandemics to Privacy and Ethics at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). The event was organized by our Global Genes –Local Concerns project, with support from the UCPH Excellence Programme for Interdisciplinary Research.
The symposium, which was inspired by the wonderful recent PFC & Berkman Center Big Data conference, featured enlightening speeches by former PFC fellows Nicholson Price on incentives for the development of black box personalized medicine and Jeff Skopek on privacy issues. In addition we were lucky to have Peter Yu speaking on “Big Data, Intellectual Property and Global Pandemics” and Michael J. Madison on Big Data and Commons Challenges”. The presentations and recordings of the session will soon be made available on our Center’s webpage.
Thanks everybody for your dedication, inspiration, great presentations and an exciting panel discussion.
“Legal Dimensions of Big Data in the Health and Life Sciences – From Intellectual Property Rights and Global Pandemics to Privacy and Ethics”
By Ameet Sarpatwari and Aaron S. Kesselheim
Each month, members of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) review the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, in-depth analyses, and thoughtful editorials on pharmaceutical law and policy.
Below are the papers identified from the month of March. The selections feature topics ranging from the characteristics and follow-up of post-marketing studies or conditionally authorized medicines in the European Union; to changes in prescription drug, over the counter drug, and dietary supplement use among older adults in the United States; to an assessment of the logic of Amarin’s off-label promotion of Vascepa. A full posting of abstracts/summaries of these articles may be found on our website.
