The US Food & Drug Administration’ handling of BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc.’s proposed ALS therapy NurOwn is, in part, an effort to draw some lines establishing the limits to regulatory flexibility in the face of significant unmet need.
US FDA Versus Its Own Precedents
The US FDA has shown astonishing flexibility in approving new drugs for neurodegenerative diseases based on efficacy evidence that falls well short of historical standards. Now the agency faces the delicate challenge of demonstrating that there are still some lines it will not cross.

More from US FDA Performance Tracker
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.
The US FDA approval of new meningococcal and chikungunya vaccines arrived in time for the 26-28 February meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee On Immunization Practices, if political developments allow.
The US FDA is receiving more requests for regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation and granting more of them, according to recently reported agency data.
More from Regulatory Trackers
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.
The European Medicines Agency is set to issue opinions this week on whether pan-EU marketing approval should be granted to a number of new products.
The US FDA approval of new meningococcal and chikungunya vaccines arrived in time for the 26-28 February meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee On Immunization Practices, if political developments allow.