Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
An Expert Panel Exists To Give Advice To FDA Over Drug Approvals. But Agency Officials Don't Always Listen.
As the Food and Drug Administration grapples with rising pressure to approve new medicines more quickly, a new analysis finds the agency disagreed with its expert advisory panels about one-fifth of the time. The disagreements were more likely to occur over safety issues than over approving new products or additional uses for existing products. (Silverman, 7/15)
In other pharmaceutical news 鈥
The largest study to date of a 鈥渃ancer vaccine鈥 plus one of the immunotherapy drugs that has revolutionized cancer treatment found that they kept patients鈥 tumors in check longer, on average, than drugs alone, but that the benefit was still only a few months for two forms of cancer, study sponsor Neon Therapeutics reported on Monday. It was a hint that an experimental therapy often described as the next great hope for immune-based approaches to fighting cancer will not be a silver bullet. (Begley, 7/15)
