Eye on FDA

On June 2, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued draft guidance on how drug and device companies may communicate health care economic information (HCEI) with payors (e.g., health insurance companies), formulary committees (e.g., pharmacy and therapeutics committees) and similar entities. The guidance, Drug and Device Manufacturer Communications With Payors, Formulary Committees, and Similar Entities – Questions and Answers, is now open for comment.

In December 2016, the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act (P.L. 114-255) was enacted, marking a pivotal milestone in advancing a patient-focused drug development (PFDD) paradigm. This law directed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop and implement strategies to solicit view of patients during the medical product development process and consider the perspectives of patients during regulatory discussions. Over the past decade, FDA has steadily taken steps to implement the 21st Century Cures Act patient-focused drug development provisions, including through meetings by which patients, caregivers, family members and patient advocates, among others, have been able to provide information about patients’ experiences with a disease or condition. The opportunity to provide such feedback through these patient-focused meetings is a key pillar of the agency’s patient-focused drug development engagement.

On March 20, 2026, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the agency will hold a public hearing on the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher (CNPV) Pilot Program, with a Federal Register notice soliciting public comment and scheduling a public hearing for June 12, 2026. As previously noted here and here, the program was announced in June 2025 for the purpose of providing select sponsors with a nontransferable voucher for enhanced engagement with FDA and expedited review for drugs and biologics supporting one or more critical national health priorities, while maintaining adherence to the law’s rigorous safety and effectiveness standards. The national health priorities include public health crisis response, innovative breakthrough therapies, large unmet medical needs, onshoring and supply chain resilience initiatives, and affordability improvements. To date, FDA has issued 18 Commissioner’s National Priority vouchers and approved four products to receive these vouchers, including two oncology drugs 44 and 55 days after filing.

Last week, FDA released draft guidance titled “Scientific Considerations in Demonstrating Biosimilarity to a Reference Product: Updated Recommendations for Assessing the Need for Comparative Efficacy Studies.” This draft guidance reflects an evolution in FDA’s approach to determining whether a comparative clinical study with efficacy endpoints (a comparative efficacy study or CES) is necessary to support a demonstration of biosimilarity. Specifically, the agency notes that a comparative analytical assessment (CAA) is generally more sensitive when it comes to detecting differences between products than a CES.

On October 23, 2025, FDA released its final guidance regarding Patient-Focused Drug Development: Selecting, Developing, or Modifying Fit-for-Purpose Clinical Outcome Assessments. The guidance is the third guidance in a four-part series of FDA guidance focused on patient-focused drug development (PFDD) that describe how stakeholders, such as patients, caregivers, researchers, medical product developers and others can submit patient experience data and other relevant information that can be used for medical product development and regulatory decision making.

On October 16, 2025, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled the first group of nine voucher recipients under the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher (CNPV) pilot program, a program announced by the agency earlier this year that provides a path for accelerated drug review for companies supporting national interests as determined by the Commissioner. The identified areas of priority by the agency include meeting large unmet medical needs, bolstering domestic manufacturing and increasing the affordability of medicines for American patients. As previously noted, the new program, which is not defined in statute or regulations, aims to significantly speed up FDA’s standard 10-12 month review timeline to just 1-2 months after filing an application for a drug or biologic. The agency has touted the  benefit of recipients of the vouchers receiving enhanced access with FDA review staff and a “team-based review” model.

On Tuesday, September 23, 2025, FDA published guidance titled “Consideration of Enforcement Policies for In Vitro Diagnostic Tests During a Section 564 Declared Emergency.” The guidance, a draft of which was published on May 6, 2024, specifies the factors that FDA intends to assess in deciding whether to issue an enforcement discretion policy with regard to in vitro diagnostics (IVD) manufacturers offering unapproved IVDs, among other devices, during a declared emergency. These factors include:

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a proposed rule to revoke the color additive listing for Orange B, a synthetic dye historically used on the casings and surfaces of frankfurters and sausages. This action is part of the broader “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative to phase out petroleum-based foods from the American food supply by the end of 2026 and efforts to modernize the agency’s regulations.

The White House’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, led by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., released its highly anticipated strategy outlining a multi-agency approach focused on addressing childhood chronic disease. The strategy builds on the Commission’s inaugural health assessment, a report which examined the rising rates of childhood chronic diseases in the country and identified four primary drivers: poor diet due to consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), exposure to environmental chemicals; increased technological use; and overmedicalization. To combat these challenges, the strategy released on September 9, 2025, outlines a four-prong approach which provides further insight into the areas the administration sees as key areas of MAHA going forward: advancing research, realigning incentives, increasing public awareness and fostering private sector collaborations.