Breakthrough therapy designation in the U.S. and PRIority MEdicines (PRIME) in the EU are two programs intended to facilitate and expedite development and review of new drugs to address unmet medical needs. By successfully engaging with regulatory authorities early in the clinical development process, sponsors of eligible investigational drugs can help ensure that their development...
As our understanding of the genetic and molecular basis of cancer advances, rare oncology research is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. In fact, in 2014, more than 40 percent of U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s orphan drug designations were for rare cancers. Moreover, the trend toward increasing international cooperation among big pharma, biotech, and academia...
Central nervous system (CNS) disorders are a diverse group of conditions that include psychiatric, neurological and substance abuse disorders. Unfortunately for patients, treatment options for CNS disorders are often limited (or non-existent). To make matters worse, comparatively few CNS drugs are in the development pipeline. What aspects of CNS disorders contribute to lagging drug development? Read on to...
A variety of factors can make it difficult to conduct traditional full-scale clinical trials for new treatments of rare cancers. Consequently, because so little information is available, treatments for rare oncology patients are inadequate or nonexistent. Luckily for both patients and researchers, the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have introduced regulations that expedite review and approval of certain investigative drugs. Expedited FDA...
The year 2015 was a productive one for introduction of drugs that target rare diseases. U.S. regulators approved 21 new orphan drugs, a 40 percent increase from the previous year. European regulators approved a record 18 orphan compounds, a small increase over 2014. Any progress is a good thing, but these advances pale when weighed...
It would be hard to overstate the need for new therapies that target unmet medical needs, especially in rare disease. After all, there are only about 400 approved “orphan drugs,” meaning that 95 percent of rare diseases lack a single approved treatment. Now the good news: U.S. and European regulators, recognizing the size and severity...
The challenges of greater regulatory scrutiny, complex logistics, downward cost pressure and increasingly rigorous data requirements are just a few of the reasons biotech and pharmaceutical companies look to outsource clinical trials. In a dynamic healthcare and regulatory environment, outsourcing increases flexibility by streamlining clinical trial management and enabling sponsors to concentrate their resources on...
DURHAM, N.C., June 27, 2016 — Small biotechnology companies taking new biopharmaceutical products from benchtop to bedside need an informed regulatory strategy and a close working knowledge of the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies. So when it sought a new head of regulatory affairs, clinical development service provider Premier Research found its ideal...
The client asked the nearly impossible — a task so daunting that two other CROs had simply said “no, thanks.” Completing a new drug application typically takes a year to a year and a half, but the time available here was six months. And the short timeline was only the half of it. So we...
DURHAM, N.C., April 05, 2016 – New European Union standards governing clinical research have significant implications for future drug trials. Nicky Dodsworth, Vice President, Quality Assurance, Risk & Compliance at Premier Research, will discuss these changes at the 2016 West and Wales Regional Forum on Innovation and Risk, April 21 in Milton Park, Oxfordshire, U.K. In...