This is not a test: RMAT designation goes live

By: Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D.

The field of regenerative medicine encompasses a wide scope of innovative products including cell therapies, therapeutic tissue engineering products, human cell and tissue products, and certain combination products using such therapies. Examples include genetically-modified cellular therapies, such as chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-T cells) and human tissues grown on scaffolds for subsequent use. These products hold great promise in addressing serious unmet medical needs. For example, data from a number of different published studies indicate the potential for CAR-T cells to treat certain relapsed or refractory blood cancers.

Recognizing the importance of this field, Congress included several provisions related to regenerative medicine in the 21st Century Cures Act, signed into law on Dec. 13, 2016. Building on the FDA’s existing expedited programs available to regenerative medicine products, one of these provisions established a new program to help foster the development and approval of these products: Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) Designation.

Sponsors of certain cell therapies, therapeutic tissue engineering products, human cell and tissue products, and certain combination products may obtain the RMAT designation for their drug product if the drug is intended to treat serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions and if there is preliminary clinical evidence indicating that the drug has the potential to address unmet medical needs for that disease or condition. Sponsors may make such a request with or after submission of an investigational new drug application and the agency then will take action on the requests within 60 calendar days of receipt.

Sponsors of RMAT-designated products are eligible for increased and earlier interactions with the FDA, similar to those interactions available to sponsors of breakthrough-designated therapies. In addition, they may be eligible for priority review and accelerated approval. The meetings with sponsors of RMAT-designated products may include discussions of whether accelerated approval would be appropriate based on surrogate or intermediate endpoints reasonably likely to predict long-term clinical benefit, or reliance upon data obtained from a meaningful number of sites.

Once approved, when appropriate, the FDA can permit fulfillment of post-approval requirements under accelerated approval through the submission of clinical evidence, clinical studies, patient registries, or other sources of real world evidence such as electronic health records; through the collection of larger confirmatory datasets; or through post-approval monitoring of all patients treated with the therapy prior to approval.

The FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research is committed to helping make regenerative medicine advanced therapies that are shown to be safe and effective available as soon as possible, particularly for patients with serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions lacking other treatment options.

We have started receiving RMAT designation requests and expect that, as with Breakthrough Therapy Designation, early and frequent communication facilitated by the RMAT designation will help reduce overall product development times. We very much look forward to continuing to work with sponsors of these products and other stakeholders to help make these exciting new therapies available to those in need.

Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The opinions expressed in this blog post are the author’s only and do not necessarily reflect those of MassDevice.com or its employees.

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