Most drugs today qualify for one of the FDA’s expedited pathways. But what is the evidence that the public is on board with the notion of sacrificing safety for speed?
What is already known on this topic
- Recent legislation in America opens the possibility for the expansion and increased use of FDA expedited drug development and review pathways designed to respond to public health priorities
- Evidence on whether drugs approved through expedited regulatory pathways carry higher levels of safety risks that are unknown at the time of approval is conflicting
- Some studies suggest that the review process does not impact the quality of the safety assessment, whereas others show a difference
What this study adds
- In this analysis concerning more than 15 years of comprehensive data, expedited pathway drugs had a 38% higher rate of safety related label changes than drugs approved through non-expedited pathways
- As policymakers continue to expand expedited regulatory pathways, physicians and patients should be aware of the potential safety trade-offs involved in these pathways
2017 Study Abstract
Objective
To determine if drugs approved through the Food and Drug Administration’s expedited development and review pathways have different rates of safety related label changes after approval compared with drugs approved through standard non-expedited pathways.
Design
Retrospective cohort study.
Setting
FDA public records, January 1997 to April 2016.
Participants
382 FDA approved drugs.
Main outcome measures
The number of times a particular safety section of a label (boxed warning, contraindication, warning, precaution, or adverse reaction) was changed during a drug’s time on the market. The relative rate of safety related label changes per year for expedited pathway and non-expedited pathway drugs was compared by forming matched pairs of drugs in the same therapeutic class that were approved within three years of each other.
Results
Among the 382 eligible new drugs, 135 (35%) were associated with an expedited development or review pathway, and matches were available for 96 (71%). The matched pairs were associated with a total of 1710 safety related label changes during the study period. Expedited pathway drugs were characterized by a rate of 0.94 safety related label changes for each drug per year, compared with 0.68 safety related label changes per year for non-expedited pathway drugs (rate ratio 1.38, 95% confidence interval 1.25 to 1.52). Compared with non-expedited pathway drugs, expedited pathway drugs had a 48% higher rate of changes to boxed warnings and contraindications, the two most clinically important categories of safety warnings (1.48, 95% confidence interval 1.07 to 2.06). A qualitative review of changes to the boxed warning sections revealed that less than 5% (3/67) were changed to describe reduced risks for patients.
Conclusions
Expedited development and regulatory review pathways can accelerate the availability of new drugs, but drugs approved through these pathways are associated with increased safety related label changes after approval, particularly for the types of changes representing the highest risk warnings. To inform appropriate policy interventions, additional research should explore the causal factors contributing to these different rates.
More Information
- Safety related label changes for new drugs after approval in the US through expedited regulatory pathways: retrospective cohort study, BMJ 2017;358:j3837, 07 September 2017.
- Speed vs safety in the FDA’s new drug approvals—speed wins, again, blogs.bmj, September 12, 2017.
- Featured image credit stickergiant.