Now that Dr. Scott Gottlieb is safely installed as FDA Commissioner, we at DDLaw can end our moratorium on blogposts about First Amendment issues. There was no way we wanted to give his opponents any ammunition by saying nice things about Dr. Gottlieb before his confirmation.

Not so now.

Given what Dr. Gottlieb has said…

This guest post is from Liz Minerd, an associate at Reed Smith.  She previously wrote the post on the FDA’s off-label promotion meeting last November, so when she indicated that she’d like to write about the FDA’s “Midnight Memo” on the same topic, we were only too happy to say “yes.”  So here is some in-depth analysis of the FDA’s rather unusual decision to, in effect, comment on its own meeting.  As always, our guest posters deserve all the credit, and any blame, for their efforts.

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As this blog reported here, last week—two days before the change in administrations—the FDA released a memorandum entitled “Public Health Interests and First Amendment Considerations Related to Manufacturer Communications Regarding Unapproved Uses of Approved or Cleared Medical Products” available here. The Agency characterizes this 12th hour memorandum as a follow up to the two-day public meeting it held on November 9-10 regarding off-label promotion (or what the Agency refers to as “communications regarding unapproved uses of approved/cleared medical products”).  In particular, the Agency claims that it is issuing this memorandum to provide “additional background” in response to frustrations expressed by certain speakers during the November meeting regarding the Agency’s failure to adequately address the First Amendment in the public hearing notice.

However, the real purpose of the memorandum appears to be to set forth the Agency’s justification for their current restrictions on off-label promotion before a new administration and a new FDA commissioner could have a chance to revisit them. Indeed, after briefly noting the First Amendment concerns raised at the November meeting, the Agency spends the first twenty pages of the memorandum detailing its oft-repeated policy justifications for its current restrictions before addressing any of the First Amendment jurisprudence that has called those restrictions into question.  Its attitude is reflected in the memorandum’s first case citation—to the dissent in United States v. Caronia, 703 F.3d 149 (2d Cir. 2012).  [Memorandum, at p. 2. fn. 3]  The Agency’s lengthy policy discussion demonstrates that the outgoing policymakers at the FDA find very little benefit in communications from manufacturers regarding off-label uses even, though it recites that off-label uses can be the standard of care in some circumstances.  This attitude, that only the Agency can keep the public sufficiently safe, is classic governmental paternalism of the sort that the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly condemned in its First Amendment decisions over the past several decades.

For example, the Agency asserts that it seeks to “motivate” the creation of “robust scientific data” about the safety and effectiveness of drugs. [Memorandum at 4-5]  However, the current prohibitions only do so prior to approval of a product.  After approval—a time period usually much longer than the approval process itself—the current prohibitions prevent the same manufacturers from providing the same sorts of scientific data to the same audience.  Thus, the Agency’s current prohibitions actually interfere with the continued creation of robust scientific data after approval.  For example, a manufacturer can be required to post clinical trial results concerning an off-label use [Memorandum at 17-18], but is prohibited from informing doctors that they can view the results on ClinicalTrials.gov and decide whether their patients might benefit from the studied use.Continue Reading Guest Post – Midnight Madness − The FDA Continues To Discount First Amendment Implications Of Restrictions On Off-Label Promotion

Today’s guest post is by Liz Minerd, a Reed Smith associate, who closely followed the online feed of  the recent FDA meeting that the Agency called to discuss what changes would be appropriate in its off-label promotion restrictions – although the official agenda steered away from both the terms “off-label” and “promotion”.  What follows is her summary of two days of testimony from over 60 speakers, some of whom thought that it was crazy that any damn fool can say whatever s/he wants about off-label uses, except for manufacturers, who can’t even tell the truth although knowing the most about them due to ongoing pharmacovigilance obligations, and other speakers who … do not.

As always, our guest poster deserves 100% of the credit (and any blame) for her post.  We’re only the piano-players.  Take it away Liz.

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Last Wednesday and Thursday (Nov. 9-10, 2016), the FDA conducted a public meeting on “Manufacturer Communications Regarding Unapproved Uses of Approved or Cleared Medical Products.”  The FDA’s notice of the meeting (available here) stated:

FDA is engaged in a comprehensive review of its regulations and policies governing firms’ communications about unapproved uses of approved/cleared medical products, and the input from this meeting will inform FDA’s policy development in this area.

What that means, stripped of regulatory jargon, is that the FDA public meeting involved potential updating of the FDA’s decades-old prohibition on truthful promotion of off-label uses by regulated manufacturers.Continue Reading Guest Post – The FDA’s Two-Day Meeting on Manufacturer Off-Label Communications