83 FR 52471 - Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent Extension; TREMFYA

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Food and Drug Administration

Federal Register Volume 83, Issue 201 (October 17, 2018)

Page Range		52471-52472
FR Document		2018-22571

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) has determined the regulatory review period for TREMFYA 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 a patent which claims that human biological product.

Federal Register, Volume 83 Issue 201 (Wednesday, October 17, 2018)

[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 201 (Wednesday, October 17, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 52471-52472]
From the Federal Register Online [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2018-22571]

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Food and Drug Administration

[Docket Nos. FDA-2017-E-6371 and FDA-2017-E-6372]

Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent
Extension; TREMFYA

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 TREMFYA 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 a patent which claims that human
biological product.

DATES: Anyone with knowledge that any of the dates as published (see
the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section) are incorrect may submit either
electronic or written comments and ask for a redetermination by
December 17, 2018. 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 April 15,
2019. 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. Electronic comments
must be submitted on or before December 17, 2018. The https://www.regulations.gov electronic filing system will accept comments until
11:59 p.m. Eastern Time at the end of December 17, 2018. Comments
received by mail/hand delivery/courier (for written/paper submissions)
will be considered timely if they are postmarked or the delivery
service acceptance receipt is 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 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-2017-E-6371 and FDA-2017-E-6372 for ``Determination of Regulatory
Review Period for Purposes of Patent Extension; TREMFYA.'' 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.
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.thefederalregister.org/fdsys/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.

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.

[[Page 52472]]

A regulatory review period consists of two periods of time: A
testing phase and an approval phase. For human biological products, the
testing phase begins when the exemption to permit the clinical
investigations of the biological product becomes effective and runs
until the approval phase begins. The approval phase starts with the
initial submission of an application to market the human biological
product and continues until FDA grants permission to market the
biological 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 biological 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 biologic product TREMFYA
(guselkumab). TREMFYA is indicated for the treatment of adult patients
with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for
systemic therapy or phototherapy. Subsequent to this approval, the
USPTO received patent term restoration applications for TREMFYA (U.S.
Patent Nos.7,935,344 and 7,993,645) from Janssen Biotech, Inc., and the
USPTO requested FDA's assistance in determining the patents'
eligibility for patent term restoration. In a letter dated January 9,
2018, FDA advised the USPTO that this human biological product had
undergone a regulatory review period and that the approval of TREMFYA
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
TREMFYA is 2,968 days. Of this time, 2,728 days occurred during the
testing phase of the regulatory review period, while 240 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 (21 U.S.C. 355(i)) became effective: May 30,
2009. The applicant claims April 30, 2009, as the date the
investigational new drug application (IND) became effective. However,
FDA records indicate that the IND effective date was May 30, 2009,
which was 30 days after FDA receipt of the IND.
2. The date the application was initially submitted with respect to
the human biological product under section 351 of the Public Health
Service Act (42 U.S.C. 262): November 16, 2016. FDA has verified the
applicant's claim that the biologics license application (BLA) for
TREMFYA (BLA 761061) was initially submitted on November 16, 2016.
3. The date the application was approved: July 13, 2017. FDA has
verified the applicant's claim that BLA 761061 was approved on July 13,
2017.
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 1,252 days or 1,203 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
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: October 11, 2018.
Leslie Kux,
Associate Commissioner for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2018-22571 Filed 10-16-18; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4164-01-P

Document Created: 2018-10-17 01:47:03
Document Modified: 2018-10-17 01:47:03

Category		Regulatory Information
Collection		Federal Register
sudoc Class		AE 2.7: GS 4.107: AE 2.106:
Publisher		Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration
Section		Notices
Action		Notice.
Dates		Anyone with knowledge that any of the dates as published (see the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section) are incorrect may submit either electronic or written comments and ask for a redetermination by December 17, 2018. 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 April 15, 2019. See ``Petitions'' in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for more 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.
FR Citation		83 FR 52471

83 FR 52471 - Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent Extension; TREMFYA

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESFood and Drug Administration

Federal Register Volume 83, Issue 201 (October 17, 2018)

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Food and Drug Administration