Policy

FEATURED STORIES
With five CDER leaders in one year and regulatory proposals coming “by fiat,” the FDA is only making it more difficult to bring therapies to patients.
The record-setting government shutdown was just the latest blow to the U.S. biopharma industry. When science funding becomes a casualty of political gridlock, we lose valuable talent, erode public trust and jeopardize our position as a global leader in innovation.
Representatives from companies such as Sanofi and Forge Biologics point to the potential for PreCheck to drive activation of idle production capacity and help companies that are already building plants.
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According to Makary, reducing user fees—which make up just under half of the FDA’s budget—could make it easier for smaller companies, individual investors and academics to participate in the process.
Despite the FDA commissioner’s promises of partnership and collaboration, personnel changes and continued federal cuts create uncertainty for an industry already struggling with nearly half a decade of investment scarcity.

FDA
A journey through the FDA’s newly released complete response letters gave glimpses into the journeys to market for Eli Lilly’s Alzheimer’s antibody Kisunla, Sarepta’s DMD gene therapy Vyondys 53 and Gilead’s HIV drug Sunlenca.
The trove of more than 200 letters is part of a pledge of transparency from the agency, with the intention to increase public insight into the reasons new drug and biologics applications got rejected.
The move has sparked concern that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force could soon be dismissed after a decision by the high court affirmed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s power to remove its members at will.
The high court’s order blocks a May decision by a California court that temporarily blocked the efforts of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to drastically reduce the size of his agency’s workforce.
Leerink Partners called the announcement a ‘positive’ given the delayed timeframe and the uncertainty that the administration will implement tariffs at all.
The FDA will allow a new dosing schedule for Eli Lilly’s Alzheimer’s drug Kisunla that could lessen a known side effect of the monoclonal antibody drug class that has led to several deaths.
President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law last week, reintroduces broader exemptions for orphan drugs from the IRA’s drug price negotiation program—a move welcomed by the biopharma industry. The new tax law also cuts Medicaid funding, posing a minimal risk to pharma’s bottomlines and potentially jeopardizing hospitals’ 340B status. It does not, however, include new rules for pharmacy benefit managers that had been in an earlier draft.
Societies, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, allege that Kennedy’s directive to remove COVID-19 from vaccination guidelines for healthy pregnant women and healthy children puts these vulnerable groups at risk of serious illness.