FDA Sets Goals That May Put Vaccine Out of Reach Before Vote
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to have an expert panel review any Covid-19 vaccine application for emergency use.
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to have an expert panel review any Covid-19 vaccine application for emergency use, and wants to see at least two months of safety data, the agency said Tuesday.
The requirements will almost certainly add to the time it will take to review any vaccine, potentially past President Donald Trump’s goal of having one by Election Day next month. While the FDA has said it plans to work as quickly as possible, it has also said it won’t cut scientific corners or bend to political pressure to rush a vaccine.
Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc., AstraZeneca Plc and Johnson & Johnson all have vaccine candidates in late-stage clinical trials. Drugmakers too have said that they intend to stick to the science and not bend to political demands to accelerate their development efforts.
Trump, whose re-election hinges on his response to the Covid-19 pandemic, has repeatedly suggested a vaccine will be ready by Nov. 3. The added steps will likely lengthen the process and make hitting Trump’s target unlikely.
The FDA chose the two-month timeframe because it’s not “too aggressive” nor “too conservative,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said Tuesday at the John Hopkins University and University of Washington Vaccine Symposium.
The window “likely assures no Covid vaccine EUA consideration is possible until around November 24-25 for Pfizer/Moderna at the earliest,” Steven Seedhouse, a Raymond James analyst, said in a note to clients Tuesday.
In a document posted earlier Tuesday, the agency shared its most detailed public statement yet on what it will take to get a vaccine cleared under a fast-track emergency use authorization, or EUA. A separate guidance document laying out the requirements to the public had been under review at the White House. Later Tuesday, the agency published the requirements as “Guidance for Industry” on its web site.
The FDA has repeatedly said it has already shared the details with drugmakers.
The guidance makes clear that the FDA will add an extra step. In Tuesday’s document, the FDA said it will require an additional, follow-up meeting of its Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee to look at specific applications by drugmakers.
“This discussion will be specific to the particular vaccine that is the subject of the EUA request and will be separate from, and in addition to, any general discussion by the VRBPAC regarding the development, authorization and/or licensure of vaccines to prevent Covid-19,” the FDA said in the document.
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Pfizer has indicated that it could have data showing its vaccine candidate is safe and effective as soon as this month, but there have been signs recruitment in its late-stage trial is slowing.
In a series of tweets, Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said the drugmaker has “never discussed” the FDA’s vaccine guidelines with the White House and “will never do so as it could undermine the agency’s independence.”
Other trials are likely to read out later in the year. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said at a Financial Times conference last week that the company doesn’t expect to be able to file for an emergency authorization before the end of November. And a U.S. trial of AstraZeneca Plc’s experimental vaccine is still on hold after a trial participant in the U.K. was sickened.
The FDA documents were posted ahead of an Oct. 22 meeting by the VRBPAC to discuss generally how the agency will review a Covid-19 vaccine.
The agency had “already communicated with individual manufacturers about its expectations, data the agency intends to consider” and what it expects “to see in a request for an emergency use authorization to demonstrate safety and efficacy,” FDA spokesman Michael Felberbaum said in a statement Monday, after the New York Times and Politco reported Monday that the original guidance document had been blocked by the White House.
The guidance’s publication ends a battle between the White House and the FDA. President Donald Trump had said last month he could overrule any standards he thought were too onerous.
“There are few moments I can think of where so much political dust was created by political officials for so little actual, practical effect,” Trump’s first FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said at the symposium.
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