Coronavirus vaccine sponsors may be stuck with the US Food and Drug Administration’s call for placebo-controlled follow up of COVID-19 vaccines after they receive emergency use authorization. The agency's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee reaffirmed the need for such data to support a full biologics license application during its 22 October meeting.
US COVID-19 Advisors Vexed By Vaccine Post-EUA Placebo Controls, But Agree On Need
FDA indicates it expects sponsors and other government agencies to come up with ways to fulfill its request for placebo-controlled studies post-emergency use authorization of COVID-19 vaccines, but neither it nor vaccines advisory committee see a clear way to do this.

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Antabio’s next-generation, broad-spectrum antibacterial, MEM-ANT3310, has made it onto the European Medicines Agency’s priority medicines scheme. The company says its product is designed to make a significant impact on the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance.
Organizational turmoil has not yet affected reviews of novel agent applications, with Q1 2025 approvals coming in low, but the first quarter share of the entire year is variable.
Sanofi’s Dupixent, Amgen’s Uplizna, and Bristol’s Opdivo seek new indications, while J&J hopes to start a franchise with nipocalimab and Stealth’s day of reckoning approaches.
March features nearly 20 user fee goal dates, including a crowd of novel candidates for crowded areas like hemophilia, heart disease and urinary tract infections, as well as the potentially first therapies for a rare eye disease and hyperphagia of Prader-Willi syndrome.
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Sanofi’s Dupixent, Amgen’s Uplizna, and Bristol’s Opdivo seek new indications, while J&J hopes to start a franchise with nipocalimab and Stealth’s day of reckoning approaches.
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This is an update of recommendations from the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use on the authorization of new medicines in the EU, and updates on EU marketing authorization changes recommended by the CHMP.