Health Law Informer

On February 23, the FDA announced a new approval pathway designed to support the development of drugs for ultra-rare diseases. Often, treatments for ultra-rare diseases have difficulty meeting the agency’s rigorous approval requirements. The FDA has issued a guidance document for the “Plausible Mechanism Framework,” which will allow drugmakers to bypass certain clinical trial requirements when advancing drugs treating ultra-rare conditions. Specifically, the framework will target products where randomized clinical trials are not feasible. Rather, the experience of individuals will inform the drug’s path to approval.  The therapies targeted will be those which are designed to correct or modify the underlying cause of a specific genetic, cellular, or molecular abnormality which causes disease. The framework may further apply to other tailored therapeutics, if they directly address the specific underlying cause of the disease.