Pharma News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned Liveyon Labs Inc. (Liveyon Labs) and Liveyon LLC, of Yorba Linda, California, and their presidents and chief executive officers, Roya Panah and John W. Kosolcharoen, for processing and distributing unapproved products derived from umbilical cord blood. They have also been warned regarding significant deviations from current good tissue practice (CGTP) and current good manufacturing practice (CGMP) requirements, including deficient donor eligibility practices, inadequate aseptic practices to prevent contamination and deficient environmental monitoring. These deviations create potential significant safety concerns that put patients at risk. The companies’ unapproved products derived from umbilical cord blood are PURE and PURE PRO.

The number of pregnant women and children in sub-Saharan Africa sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets and benefiting from preventive medicine for malaria has increased significantly in recent years, according to the World Health Organization’s World malaria report 2019.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been investigating the presence of genotoxic impurities, called nitrosamines, in some types of drugs. Over the past year and a half, several drug products including angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) and ranitidine, commonly known as Zantac, have been found to contain small amounts of nitrosamines such as N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). During this time, there has been an ongoing investigation into the presence of nitrosamines in other drug products. This effort is focused on ensuring the drugs used by Americans continue to meet strict quality standards.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for ORENCIA® (abatacept) for the prevention of moderate to severe acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) in hematopoietic stem cell transplants from unrelated donors. There are no approved therapies for the prevention of acute GvHD, a potentially life-threatening medical complication that can impact patients receiving such transplants for the treatment of certain genetic diseases and hematologic cancers.

AstraZeneca and MSD Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., US announced that the companies have received marketing authorisation from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for Lynparza (olaparib) as a 1st-line maintenance treatment of adult patients with newly diagnosed advanced germline or somatic BRCA mutated (gBRCAm or sBRCAm) epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer who are in complete or partial response to 1st-line platinum-based chemotherapy.

Safeguarding human health from climate change impacts is more urgent than ever, yet most countries are not acting fully on their own plans to achieve this, according to the first global snapshot of progress on climate change and health. The new report draws on data from 101countries surveyed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and reported in the 2018 WHO Health and Climate Change Survey Report.

This guidance provides FDA’s current thinking on drug master files (DMFs), which are  submissions to FDA that may be used to provide confidential, detailed information about  facilities, processes, or articles used in the manufacturing, processing, packaging, and storing of human drug products. DMFs can contain other types of information as well (e.g., toxicology  information, shared system REMS (risk evaluation and mitigation strategy).

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ordered Gynecology, Reproductive Endocrinology and Fertility Institute of San Juan, Puerto Rico and its Medical Director and Owner, Dr. Rosa I. Cruz, to immediately cease manufacturing due to significant violations of FDA regulations. An FDA inspection and subsequent record review revealed significant violations of regulations regarding donor eligibility determinations, including donor screening and testing. The clinic’s failure to fulfill these requirements puts patients at risk for exposure to communicable diseases, including HIV and hepatitis.

There are three treatment options commonly used by doctors in the emergency room to treat patients with refractory status epilepticus, severe seizures that continue even after benzodiazepine medications, which are effective in controlling seizures in more than two-thirds of patients. New findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine reveal that the three drugs, levetiracetam, fosphenytoin, and valproate, are equally safe and effective in treating patients with this condition. The study was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health.