[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 186 (Wednesday, September 25, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 78307-78309]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-21930]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Food and Drug Administration
[Docket Nos. FDA-2024-E-0428, FDA-2024-E-0429, FDA-2024-E-0430, and
FDA-2024-E-0431]
Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent
Extension; FRUZAQLA
AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) has
determined the regulatory review period for FRUZAQLA and is publishing
this notice of that determination as required by law. FDA has made the
determination because of the submission of applications to the Director
of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Department of
Commerce, for the extension of patents which claim that human drug
product.
DATES: Anyone with knowledge that any of the dates as published (see
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION) are incorrect must submit either electronic
or written comments and ask for a redetermination by November 25, 2024.
Furthermore, any interested person may petition FDA for a determination
regarding whether the applicant for extension acted with due diligence
during the regulatory review period by March 24, 2025. See
``Petitions'' in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for more
information.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments as follows. Please note that late,
untimely filed comments will not be considered. The https://www.regulations.gov electronic filing system will accept comments until
11:59 p.m. Eastern Time at the end of November 25, 2024. Comments
received by mail/hand delivery/courier (for written/paper submissions)
will be considered timely if they are received on or before that date.
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
[[Page 78308]]
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 Nos.
FDA-2024-E-0428, FDA-2024-E-0429, FDA-2024-E-0430, and FDA-2024-E-0431
for ``Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent
Extension; FRUZAQLA.'' Received comments, those filed in a timely
manner (see ADDRESSES), 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 Sec. 10.20 (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.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Beverly Friedman, Office of Regulatory
Policy, Food and Drug Administration, 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Bldg.
51, Rm. 6200, Silver Spring, MD 20993, 301-796-3600.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984
(Pub. L. 98-417) and the Generic Animal Drug and Patent Term
Restoration Act (Pub. L. 100-670) generally provide that a patent may
be extended for a period of up to 5 years so long as the patented item
(human drug or biological product, animal drug product, medical device,
food additive, or color additive) was subject to regulatory review by
FDA before the item was marketed. Under these acts, a product's
regulatory review period forms the basis for determining the amount of
extension an applicant may receive.
A regulatory review period consists of two periods of time: a
testing phase and an approval phase. For human drug products, the
testing phase begins when the exemption to permit the clinical
investigations of the drug becomes effective and runs until the
approval phase begins. The approval phase starts with the initial
submission of an application to market the human drug product and
continues until FDA grants permission to market the drug product.
Although only a portion of a regulatory review period may count toward
the actual amount of extension that the Director of USPTO may award
(for example, half the testing phase must be subtracted as well as any
time that may have occurred before the patent was issued), FDA's
determination of the length of a regulatory review period for a human
drug product will include all of the testing phase and approval phase
as specified in 35 U.S.C. 156(g)(1)(B).
FDA has approved for marketing the human drug product FRUZAQLA
(fruquintinib). FRUZAQLA is indicated for the treatment of adult
patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have been previously
treated with fluoropyrimidine-, oxaliplatin-, and irinotecan-based
chemotherapy, an anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy, and
if RAS wild-type and medically appropriate, an anti-epidermal growth
factor receptor therapy. Subsequent to this approval, the USPTO
received patent term restoration applications for FRUZAQLA (U.S. Patent
Nos. 7,829,574; 8,212,033; 10,519,142; and 11,046,674) from HUTCHMED
LTD., and the USPTO requested FDA's assistance in determining the
patents' eligibility for patent term restoration. In a letter dated
April 17, 2024, FDA advised the USPTO that this human drug product had
undergone a regulatory review period and that the approval of FRUZAQLA
represented the first permitted commercial marketing or use of the
product. Thereafter, the USPTO requested that FDA determine the
product's regulatory review period.
II. Determination of Regulatory Review Period
FDA has determined that the applicable regulatory review period for
FRUZAQLA is 2,604 days. Of this time, 2,380 days occurred during the
testing phase of the regulatory review period, while 224 days occurred
during the approval phase. These periods of time were derived from the
following dates:
1. The date an exemption under section 505(i) of the Federal Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) (21 U.S.C. 355(i)) became effective:
September 23, 2016. FDA has verified the applicant's claims that the
date the investigational new drug application became effective was on
September 23, 2016.
2. The date the application was initially submitted with respect to
the human drug product under section 505 of the FD&C Act: March 30,
2023. FDA has verified the applicant's claim that the new drug
application (NDA) for FRUZAQLA (NDA 217564) was initially submitted on
March 30, 2023.
3. The date the application was approved: November 8, 2023. FDA has
verified the applicant's claim that NDA 217564 was approved on November
8, 2023.
This determination of the regulatory review period establishes the
maximum potential length of a patent extension. However, the USPTO
applies several statutory limitations in its calculations of the actual
period for patent extension. In its applications for patent extension,
this applicant seeks 544 days, 793 days, or 1,414 days of patent term
extension.
III. Petitions
Anyone with knowledge that any of the dates as published are
incorrect may submit either electronic or written comments and, under
21 CFR 60.24, ask for a redetermination (see DATES). Furthermore, as
specified in Sec. 60.30 (21 CFR 60.30), any interested person may
petition FDA for a determination regarding whether the applicant for
[[Page 78309]]
extension acted with due diligence during the regulatory review period.
To meet its burden, the petition must comply with all the requirements
of Sec. 60.30, including but not limited to: must be timely (see
DATES), must be filed in accordance with Sec. 10.20, must contain
sufficient facts to merit an FDA investigation, and must certify that a
true and complete copy of the petition has been served upon the patent
applicant. (See H. Rept. 857, part 1, 98th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 41-42,
1984.) Petitions should be in the format specified in 21 CFR 10.30.
Submit petitions electronically to https://www.regulations.gov at
Docket No. FDA-2013-S-0610. Submit written petitions (two copies are
required) to the Dockets Management Staff (HFA-305), Food and Drug
Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.
Dated: September 18, 2024.
Lauren K. Roth,
Associate Commissioner for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2024-21930 Filed 9-24-24; 8:45 am]
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