The FDA is moving to scale back its long-standing use of expert panels to review drug applications, KFF Health News reported Sept. 12. George Tidmarsh, MD, PhD, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said the agency would prefer to move away from convening advisory committees for individual drug approvals, calling them “redundant” and burdensome for regulators and drugmakers. 

However, many former FDA officials, academic leaders and public health advocates disagree, saying advisory meetings offer irreplaceable value in informing agency decisions and offer the public a window into internal deliberations.  Dr. Tidmarsh’s reasoning is “hard to follow,” former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, told KFF Health News. “It’s extremely useful for people inside [the] FDA t

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