Each month, members of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) review the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, policy analyses, and editorials on health law and policy issues relevant to current or potential future work.
Below are the abstracts/summaries for papers identified from the month of March. The selections feature topics ranging from the utilization and cost of naloxone for patients at high risk of opioid overdose, to off-label and compassionate drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic, to public-sector financial support and sponsorship for gene therapy trials in the U.S. A full posting of abstracts/summaries of these articles may be found on our website.
This post is the second in a series about conducting human subjects research in emergencies. These posts are being written in response to a rapidly evolving situation and will reflect the state of knowledge at the time of writing.
In April 2020, Dr. Robin Armstrong, medical director of the Resort, a nursing home in Texas City, Texas, reported “signs of improvement” after he gave hydroxychloroquine, a drug approved by the FDA to treat malaria, to 39 of his nursing home patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19.
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?
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 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 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 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
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:
Pharmaceutical law and policy in all jurisdictions (regional, national, international);
Commission decisions (EMA opinions) and regulatory guidelines;
Health Law Year in P/Review
