Health Law Advisor

On September 28, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released two draft guidances for industry. The purpose, according to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is to modernize the approach to clinical trial design in efforts to (1) make clinical trials more efficient while maintaining patient safety and (2) increase the amount of information concerning product safety and benefits. The two draft guidances are entitled: “Master Protocols – Efficient Clinical Trial Design Strategies to Expedite Development of Cancer Drugs and Biologics” and “Adaptive ...

Two draft guidances issued together late last month seek to increase both clinical trial efficiency and the amount of information that is available about a drug’s safety and benefits.  The two draft guidances address, respectively, adaptive designs and master protocols.  This blog post discusses FDA’s recommendations for adaptive designs; master protocols will be addressed in a subsequent blog post.

An adaptive design is a “clinical trial design that allows for prospectively planned modifications to one or more aspects of the design based on the accumulating data from ...

Despite popular opinion, lawyers and judges are human and sometimes the facts of a case make it near impossible for judges to play the role of the modest umpire calling balls and strikes described by Chief Justice Roberts in his confirmation hearing.  Sometimes, bad facts make bad law because the plaintiff is so sympathetic that the just ruling may not be the "right" one.  Fachon v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration et al., appears to be the epitome of this.

Earlier this year, a 20-year old man, Eugene Neil Fachon, was diagnosed with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma ("DIPG") a form of brain ...