[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 40 (Tuesday, March 1, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10630-10632]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-04370]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Food and Drug Administration
[Docket No. FDA-2014-E-2371]
Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent
Extension; ANORO ELLIPTA
AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined the
regulatory review period for ANORO ELLIPTA and is publishing this
notice of that determination as required by law. FDA has made the
determination because of the submission of an application to the
Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Department of
Commerce, for the extension of a patent which claims that human drug
product.
DATES: Anyone with knowledge that any of the dates as published (in the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section) are incorrect may submit either
electronic or written comments and ask for a redetermination by May 2,
2016. 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 August 29, 2016.
See ``Petitions'' in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for more
information.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments as follows:
Electronic Submissions
Submit electronic comments in the following way:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.
Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Comments submitted
electronically, including attachments, to http://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
[[Page 10631]]
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 http://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): Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug
Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.
For written/paper comments submitted to the Division of
Dockets Management, 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 No.
FDA-2014-E-2371 for ``Determination of Regulatory Review Period for
Purposes of Patent Extension; ANORO ELLIPTA.'' Received comments will
be placed in the docket and, except for those submitted as
``Confidential Submissions,'' publicly viewable at http://www.regulations.gov or at the Division of Dockets Management between 9
a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
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 http://www.regulations.gov.
Submit both copies to the Division of Dockets Management. 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 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: http://www.fda.gov/regulatoryinformation/dockets/default.htm.
Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or
the electronic and written/paper comments received, go to http://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 Division of Dockets Management, 5630 Fishers
Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Beverly Friedman, Office of Regulatory
Policy, Food and Drug Administration, 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Bldg.
51, Rm. 6250, 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 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 ANORO ELLIPTA
(umeclidinium/vilanterol). ANORO ELLIPTA is indicated for the long-
term, once-daily, maintenance treatment of airflow obstruction in
patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Subsequent to this
approval, the USPTO received a patent term restoration application for
ANORO ELLIPTA (U.S. Patent No. 7,488,827) from Glaxo Group Limited, and
the USPTO requested FDA's assistance in determining this patent's
eligibility for patent term restoration. In a letter dated March 19,
2015, FDA advised the USPTO that this human drug product had undergone
a regulatory review period and that the approval of ANORO ELLIPTA
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
ANORO ELLIPTA is 1,589 days. Of this time, 1,223 days occurred during
the testing phase of the regulatory review period, while 366 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 (the FD&C Act) (21 U.S.C. 355(i)) became
effective: August 14, 2009. The applicant claims August 13, 2009, as
the date the investigational new drug application (IND) became
effective. However, FDA records indicate that the IND effective date
was August 14, 2009, which was 30 days after FDA receipt of the IND.
2. The date the application was initially submitted with respect to
the human drug product under section 505(b) of the FD&C Act: December
18, 2012. FDA has verified the applicant's claim that the new drug
application (NDA) for ANORO ELLIPTA (NDA 203975) was initially
submitted on December 18, 2012.
3. The date the application was approved: December 18, 2013. FDA
has verified the applicant's claim that NDA 203975 was approved on
December 18, 2013.
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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 application for patent extension,
this applicant seeks 966 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 ask for
a redetermination (see DATES). 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.
To meet its burden, the petition must be timely (see DATES) and contain
sufficient facts to merit an FDA investigation. (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 http://www.regulations.gov at
Docket No. FDA-2013-S-0610. Submit written petitions (two copies are
required) to the Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and
Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.
Petitions that have not been made publicly available on http://www.regulations.gov may be viewed in the Division of Dockets Management
between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Dated: February 24, 2016.
Leslie Kux,
Associate Commissioner for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2016-04370 Filed 2-29-16; 8:45 am]
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