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FDA Reviewing Facilities

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Though FDA reviewers are involved with a drug's development throughout the IND stage, the official review time is the length of time it takes to review a new drug application and issue an action letter, an official statement informing a drug sponsor of the agency's decision. Once a new drug application is filed, an FDA review team evaluates whether the studies the sponsor submitted show that the drug is safe and effective for its proposed use. No drug is absolutely safe, all drugs have side effects. The review team examines study results and looks for possible issues with the application, such as weaknesses of the study design or analyses. Each reviewer prepares a written evaluation containing conclusions and recommendations …show more content…

Whether an advisory committee is needed depends on many things. "Some considerations would be if it's a drug that has significant questions, if it's the first in its class, or the first for a given indication," says Mark Goldberger, M.D., a former director of one of CDER's drug review offices. "Generally, FDA takes the advice of advisory committees, but not always," he says. "Their role is just that--to advise." Accelerated Approval Traditional approval requires that clinical benefit be shown before approval can be granted. Accelerated approval is given to some new drugs for serious and life- threatening illnesses that lack satisfactory treatments. This allows an NDA to be approved before measures of effectiveness that would usually be required for approval are available. Instead, less traditional measures called surrogate endpoints are used to evaluate effectiveness. These are laboratory findings or signs that may not be a direct measurement of how a patient feels, functions, or survives, but are considered likely to predict benefit. Most drugs to treat HIV have been approved under accelerated approval

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