Fecal Transplants to Treat C. difficile: FDA Seeks Comment on What IND Requirements to Waive
From the article:
[...] The draft guidance comes as over the past few years, FMT, which basically involves the transfer of a healthy donor stool to the bowel of a patient infected with C. difficile, has emerged as an effective means to treat recurrent forms of the bacterial infections, according to a study in the Journal of Law and Biosciences.
Rachel Sachs, an academic fellow at Harvard University’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics, and an author of that study, explained to Focus that previously FDA said it would regulate FMT like a biologic, but that the decentralized, hospital-based model of FMT envisioned in this new draft guidance more closely resembles the agency's models for regulating tissue or cord blood products.
Two companies – Rebiotix and Seres Therapeutics – have been granted orphan drug designations for their INDs as FMT treatments for recurrent C. difficile infections, which affect between 85,000 and 110,000 people in the US annually.
And Sachs said she’s under the assumption that once a company gets FDA approval for their FMT product, FDA will revoke its enforcement discretion included in this new guidance. [...]
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biotechnology fda health law policy pharmaceuticals rachel sachs regulation