Last Friday just prior to the Veterans’ Day weekend, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a highly anticipated notice of proposed rulemaking which addresses the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 decision, PLIVA v. Mensing. The proposal, Supplemental Applications Proposing Labeling Changes for Approved Drugs and Biological Products, was introduced by Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in an FDA Voice blog post. The proposal, according to her, is “intended to improve the communication of important drug safety information about generic drugs to both prescribers and patients.”
As emphasized in a New York Times story about the proposal, “The rule would also pave the way for lawsuits from patients who could now claim that generic companies did not sufficiently warn them of a drug’s dangers.”
As WLF’s Rich Samp argued here last August in Can FDA Lawfully Overrule SCOTUS Generic Drug Preemption Decision Through Regulation?, WLF doubts that FDA has the authority under federal law to take such an action. We look forward to participating in the regulatory process and the accompanying debate that will intensify now that FDA has formally proposed the rule.