Skip to main content

New FDA task force will support innovation in antibacterial drug development‏


On September 24, 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the formation of an internal task force that will support the development of new antibacterial drugs, a critical public health care goal and a priority for the agency.
As part of its work, the Antibacterial Drug Development Task Force will assist in developing and revising guidance related to antibacterial drug development, as required by the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now (GAIN) Title of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA), signed into law on July 9, 2012. 
Research and development for new antibacterial drugs has been in decline in recent decades, and the number of new FDA-approved antibacterial drugs has been falling steadily since the 1980s. During this time, the persistent and sometimes indiscriminate use of existing antibacterial drugs worldwide has resulted in a decrease in the effectiveness of these drugs. This phenomenon, known as antibacterial drug resistance or antibiotic resistance, has become a serious issue of global concern.  
More than 70 percent of the bacteria that cause hospital-associated infections (HAIs) are resistant to at least one type of antibacterial drug most commonly used to treat these infections. In the United States, nearly 2 million Americans developed HAIs in 2002, resulting in about 99,000 deaths.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Contact Precautions May Have Unintended Consequences

Contact precautions, including gloves, gowns, and isolated rooms, have helped stem the transmission of hospital pathogens but have also had some negative consequences, according to findings from a new study. Healthcare worker (HCWs) visited patients on contact precautions less frequently than other patients and spent less time with those patients when they did visit, report Daniel J. Morgan, MD, from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs (VA) Maryland Health Care System, Baltimore, and colleagues. Moreover, patients on contact precautions also received fewer outside visitors. "Less contact with HCWs suggests that other unintended consequences of contact precautions still exist," Dr. Morgan and coauthors write. "The resulting decrease in HCW contact may lead to increased adverse events and a lower quality of patient care due to less consistent patient monitoring and poorer adherence to standard adverse event prevention methods (such...

FDA Decision Delayed for Truvada in HIV PrEP

June 11, 2012 — The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has delayed its decision on allowing the use of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine ( Truvada , Gilead) as preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) so that the proposed risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) can be reviewed. In early May, the FDA's Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee  strongly backed  approval of the first-ever drug for the prevention of sexually acquired HIV-1 infection. However, concerns by the panel at the time included that people may neglect condom use if they feel they are protected by PrEP. Panelists were also concerned that uninfected people taking PrEP who become infected with HIV may not switch to a 3-drug regimen as recommended. According to the company, the FDA has postponed the target date to September 14 so it can review Gilead's REMS plan to help ensure that patients will not misuse the drug. The committee's recommendation for supplemental approval of tenofovir/emtricit...

New and Generic Drug Approvals

September 5, 2012 Drug Name Active Ingredient Dosage Form/Route Sponsor Submission Type Amlodipine Besylate; Benazepril Hydrochloride amlodipine besylate; benazepril hydrochloride Capsule; Oral Aurobindo Pharma Ltd Approval Declomycin demeclocycline hydrochloride Tablet; Oral Corepharma Labeling Revision Trilipix choline fenofibrate Capsule, Delayed Release; Oral Abbott Labs Labeling Revision Trilipix choline fenofibrate Capsule, Delayed Release; Oral Abbott Labs Manufacturing Change or Addition Ziprasidone Hydrochloride ziprasidone hydrochloride Capsule; Oral Wockhardt Ltd Approval