Weekly Roundup: FDA Regulations, Science Funding and Newborn Screening
With so many developments at the intersection of genomics and the law, there is often a variety of interesting stories that, for one reason or another, don’t find their way into a full-length posting on the Genomics Law Report. In this post we recap several recent key developments and, at bottom, round up all of the recent tweets from @genomicslawyer.
Continuing Uncertainty Over FDA’s 510(k) Overhaul. As we have discussed previously, in addition to overhauling the approval process for direct-to-consumer (DTC) and laboratory developed tests (LDTs), the FDA is also in the midst of a comprehensive review of its 510(k) clearance process for medical devices.
The Business Effects of Regulatory Uncertainty in Genetic Testing
The business of genetic testing has progressed rapidly, if unevenly, over the past several years. Like any business based on new and rapidly developing science, the promise of new products and markets is counter-balanced by the obstacles of developing commercial products from raw science, fostering markets for those products, constructing profitable business models and overcoming novel legal and regulatory hurdles.
The Regulatory Environment Turns Negative. Until May 2010, the regulatory challenges in the genetic testing world seemed relatively benign, with most attention focused on patent and related IP issues (e.g. the Myriad gene patent litigation) and a challenging economic climate which made commercial operations and capital raising difficult for most businesses.
The Cost of Regulating LDTs
Jeffrey N. Gibbs is a director at the law firm of Hyman, Phelps & McNamara and specializes in FDA-related matters.
For many years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken the position that while it has the authority to regulate laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) as devices, the agency would exercise its enforcement discretion and not do so. More recently, FDA has taken a series of steps that backtrack from that approach, and indicated that it intends to regulate at least some LDTs as devices. Whether FDA has the legal authority to regulate LDTs or whether the agency can do so without going through notice-and-comment rulemaking will be hotly debated. The issue of whether FDA regulation is necessary or beneficial will also trigger sharply differing views. What is not debatable is that the regulation of LDTs as devices under the existing device regulatory regime, should it occur, would have a significant effect on the laboratories offering the tests that are regulated as devices, and will increase the regulatory costs for assays.
What Five FDA Letters Mean for the Future of DTC Genetic Testing
The FDA has published online letters sent to five personal genomics companies – 23andMe, Navigenics, deCODE Genetics, Knome and Illumina – informing the companies that they are manufacturing and selling medical devices without appropriate FDA premarket review and approval. No surprise that the news that the FDA has sent out letters to some of the most well-known providers of DTC genetic testing products is already making waves. (Daniel MacArthur was the first to point me to the AP story, and Mary Carmichael of Newsweek and Andrew Pollack of The New York Times were among the first to dive into the substance of the letters.)
Below, we will discuss the immediate and long-term implications of the FDA’s most recent regulatory actions for the five companies receiving letters, as well as for the DTC genetic testing industry. First, however, a review of the letters themselves is required. Each of the five two-page letters is signed by Alberto Gutierrez, Director of the FDA’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostic Device Evaluation and Safety (OIVD), and follows a similar format throughout. To gauge the impact of these letters we will take them paragraph by paragraph.
