Evaluation of Therapeutic Equivalence; Draft Guidance for Industry; Availability

AGENCY:

Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION:

Notice of availability.

SUMMARY:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or Agency) is announcing the availability of a draft guidance for industry entitled “Evaluation of Therapeutic Equivalence.” The draft guidance would explain FDA's therapeutic equivalence evaluations, including the assignment of therapeutic equivalence codes, if finalized as written. FDA's therapeutic equivalence evaluations are listed for multisource prescription drug products approved under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) in the active section of the Approved Drug Products With Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (commonly known as the Orange Book). These therapeutic equivalence evaluations have been prepared to serve as public information and advice to state health agencies, prescribers, and pharmacists to promote public education in the area of drug product selection and to foster containment of health care costs.

DATES:

Submit either electronic or written comments on the draft guidance by September 19, 2022 to ensure that the Agency considers your comment on this draft guidance before it begins work on the final version of the guidance.

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments on any guidance at any time as follows:

Electronic Submissions

Submit electronic comments in the following way:

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Comments submitted electronically, including attachments, to https://www.regulations.gov will be posted to the docket unchanged. Because your comment will be made public, you are solely responsible for ensuring that your comment does not include any confidential information that you or a third party may not wish to be posted, such as medical information, your or anyone else's Social Security number, or confidential business information, such as a manufacturing process. Please note that if you include your name, contact information, or other information that identifies you in the body of your comments, that information will be posted on https://www.regulations.gov.

• If you want to submit a comment with confidential information that you do not wish to be made available to the public, submit the comment as a written/paper submission and in the manner detailed (see “Written/Paper Submissions” and “Instructions”).

Written/Paper Submissions

Submit written/paper submissions as follows:

• Mail/Hand Delivery/Courier (for written/paper submissions): Dockets Management Staff (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.

• For written/paper comments submitted to the Dockets Management Staff, FDA will post your comment, as well as any attachments, except for information submitted, marked and identified, as confidential, if submitted as detailed in “Instructions.”

Instructions: All submissions received must include the Docket No. FDA-2022-D-0528 for “Evaluation of Therapeutic Equivalence.” Received comments will be placed in the docket and, except for those submitted as “Confidential Submissions,” publicly viewable at https://www.regulations.gov or at the Dockets Management Staff between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, 240-402-7500.

• Confidential Submissions—To submit a comment with confidential information that you do not wish to be made publicly available, submit your comments only as a written/paper submission. You should submit two copies total. One copy will include the information you claim to be confidential with a heading or cover note that states “THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION.” The Agency will review this copy, including the claimed confidential information, in its consideration of comments. The second copy, which will have the claimed confidential information redacted/blacked out, will be available for public viewing and posted on https://www.regulations.gov. Submit both copies to the Dockets Management Staff. If you do not wish your name and contact information to be made publicly available, you can provide this information on the cover sheet and not in the body of your comments and you must identify this information as “confidential.” Any information marked as “confidential” will not be disclosed except in accordance with 21 CFR 10.20 and other applicable disclosure law. For more information about FDA's posting of comments to public dockets, see 80 FR 56469, September 18, 2015, or access the information at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2015-09-18/pdf/2015-23389.pdf.

Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or the electronic and written/paper comments received, go to https://www.regulations.gov and insert the docket number, found in brackets in the heading of this document, into the “Search” box and follow the prompts and/or go to the Dockets Management Staff, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852, 240-402-7500.

You may submit comments on any guidance at any time (see 21 CFR 10.115(g)(5)).

Submit written requests for single copies of the draft guidance to the Division of Drug Information, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, 10001 New Hampshire Ave., Hillandale Building, 4th Floor, Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002. Send one self-addressed adhesive label to assist that office in processing your requests. See the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for electronic access to the draft guidance document.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Susan Levine, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Bldg. 75, Rm. 1674, Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002, 240-402-7936, Susan.Levine@fda.hhs.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

FDA is announcing the availability of a draft guidance for industry entitled “Evaluation of Therapeutic Equivalence.” The draft guidance would explain FDA's therapeutic equivalence evaluations, including the assignment of therapeutic equivalence codes. Therapeutic equivalents are approved drug products that are pharmaceutical equivalents for which bioequivalence has been demonstrated, and that can be expected to have the same clinical effect and safety profile when administered to patients under the conditions specified in the labeling.

FDA's therapeutic equivalence evaluations are listed for multisource prescription drug products approved under section 505 of the FD&C Act (21 U.S.C. 355) in the active section of the Approved Drug Products With Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (commonly known as the Orange Book). These therapeutic equivalence evaluations have been prepared to serve as public information and advice to state health agencies, prescribers, and pharmacists to promote public education in the area of drug product selection and to foster containment of health care costs. For example, the Orange Book can assist in the establishment of formularies that States and other entities may use in determining when drug products may be substituted for one another. If lower-cost, therapeutically equivalent drug products are available, American consumers are more likely to receive savings on these products without a sacrifice in the quality of treatment.

In the Federal Register of June 1, 2020 (85 FR 33165), FDA announced the establishment of a public docket to solicit comments on the Orange Book, including questions related to the presentation of information on therapeutic equivalence ( e.g., “How useful is the second letter of a therapeutic equivalence evaluation code?”), which also relate to the content of this guidance. FDA is continuing to consider the comments to this docket.

This draft guidance is being issued consistent with FDA's good guidance practices regulation (21 CFR 10.115). The draft guidance, when finalized, will represent the current thinking of FDA on “Evaluation of Therapeutic Equivalence.” It does not establish any rights for any person and is not binding on FDA or the public. You can use an alternative approach if it satisfies the requirements of the applicable statutes and regulations.

II. Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995

While this draft guidance contains no collection of information, it does refer to previously approved FDA collections of information. Therefore, clearance by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501-3521) is not required for this draft guidance. The previously approved collections of information are subject to review by OMB under the PRA. The collections of information in 21 CFR 10.30 have been approved under OMB control number 0910-0191.

III. Electronic Access

Persons with access to the internet may obtain the draft guidance at either https://www.fda.gov/drugs/guidance-compliance-regulatory-information/guidances-drugs, https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents, or https://www.regulations.gov.