Fact Sheet: Increased Patient Participation in Medical Product Regulation

Patients who live with a disease have a direct stake in the outcomes of the drug review process and are in a unique position to contribute to the entire medical product development enterprise.  Under FDASIA, the FDA will increase patient participation in medical product regulation.

• Patient Participation in Medical Product Discussions under FDASIA. Sec. 1137 of the new law  will assist the agency in developing and implementing strategies to solicit the views of patients during the medical product development process and consider their perspectives during regulatory discussions.  This will include:
  - Fostering participation of FDA Patient Representatives as Special Government Employees in appropriate agency meetings with medical product sponsors and investigators; and,
  - Exploring means to provide for identification of potential FDA Patient Representatives who do not have any, or have minimal, financial interest in the medical products industry.
• Patient-Focused Drug Development under PDUFA V. The PDUFA V agreement  provides for a new process enhancement under a commitment that will provide a more systematic and expansive approach to obtaining the patient perspective on disease severity or the unmet medical need in a therapeutic area to benefit the drug review process.  In other words, the patient perspective will provide context in which regulatory decision-making is made, specifically the analysis of the severity of the condition treatment and the current state of the treatment armamentarium for a given disease.