US FDA Grants RMAT Requests At Similar Rate To Breakthrough Designations

Over the first five years of the regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation, analysis by the Pink Sheet finds the 40% success rate of requests is comparable to the broader breakthrough therapy designation, despite less stringent RMAT criteria.

Regenerative medicine
RMAT designees are slower to receive full FDA approval than those with breakthrough therapy designations. • Source: Alamy

The US Food and Drug Administration's Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation for innovative biologics has never had the cachet of the slightly older Breakthrough Therapy designation (BTD), but FDA data on RMAT requests, as well as FDA decisions, are following a similar trajectory to the early years of BTD.

But while the FDA grants and denies BTD and RMAT requests in generally proportionate ways, on one of the most...

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