Access to expedited regulatory pathways, marketing exclusivity and tax credits in exchange for enrolling and retaining diverse clinical trial populations could provide a ‘carrot’ to the ‘stick’ in US FDA guidance and legislative proposals; attorneys Sarah Thompson Schick and Winston Kirton also call for a re-examination of concerns about remuneration for trial participants.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, has introduced draft legislation in the US that would stop the FDA from requiring biosimilars to conduct ‘unnecessary’ switching studies in order to obtain an interchangeability designation.

New, more flexible regulatory approaches will be needed to deal with the integrated therapies coming through company pipelines, and the European Medicines Agency should play a “key orchestrating role” in smoothing the way, says Sabine Atzor, Roche’s head of EU regulatory policies.

Faced with the rise in its workload, the UK’s health technology assessment body NICE is exploring ways of tailoring its approach to appraisals according to the type of product under consideration.

Improvements have been made to the second phase of an EU pilot that allows drug sponsors to obtain simultaneous scientific advice from two member states.

If successful, a new Swedish model for reimbursing antibiotics that involves guaranteed minimum annual revenues for companies, could be tested on other kinds of products.

ANVISA, Brazil’s medicines regulator, is asking for feedback on the regulatory pathway for biosimilars.

Key Republican committee chairs on health issues are familiar faces, largely supportive of the US FDA’s approach to drug regulation. Implementation of the new pricing law, however, will get a lot more scrutiny.

Research institutions, CROs, biopharma industry and other stakeholders are asked to comment on potential governance structure that would determine when trials are needed to address disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.

The European Medicines Agency’s newly established Quality Innovation Expert Group will focus on innovative pharmaceutical manufacturing approaches, starting with continuous manufacturing for biologicals and end-to-end processes, and decentralized manufacturing.

OCE Director Richard Pazdur says idea for the latest initiative stemmed from a clinical trial in lung cancer that he thought only needed to measure the impact on overall survival.

A World Health Organization negotiating body will shortly examine the “zero draft” of a proposed pandemic treaty aimed at better preparing the world for future health crises. But the international pharmaceutical industry claims the draft as currently worded could actually undermine equitable access to pandemic countermeasures.

David Ricks says the challenging political environment is empowering regulators. The Lilly leader also talked Twitter and drug prices, in a STAT Summit interview.

Pharma CEOs must balance optimizing access and profitability, former Merck CEO and soon-to-be ex executive chairman of the company said. Frazier says health care industry must come to table and admit the “system ain’t working,” talks about the need to protect democracy, in a sweeping interview at the STAT Summit.

Harm Reduction Therapeutics submits NDA for OTC approval of a 3-mg naloxone nasal spray branded RiVive. CEO Michael Hufford says the NDA touches all the bases FDA detailed in notice it published on what’s needed in naloxone OTC switch proposals.

The European Medicines Agency’s newly established Quality Innovation Expert Group will focus on innovative pharmaceutical manufacturing approaches, starting with continuous manufacturing for biologicals and end-to-end processes, and decentralized manufacturing.

The European Medicines Agency and the international association of pharmaceutical inspectorates, PIC/S, say they need to make extensive changes to their guide on using computerized systems when manufacturing medicines.

ICH  general assembly adopts guidelines on continuous manufacturing and risk management; US FDA opens pilot project to expedite CMC reviews for products with accelerated review timelines; other recent topics include quality maturity inspections and compounding standards.