The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that a Guidance for Industry entitled "Listed Drugs, 30-Month Stays, and Approval of ANDAs and 505(b)(2) Applications Under Hatch-Waxman, as Amended by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003: Questions and Answers" is being made available online (PDF).
The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) made significant changes to the generic drug approval process designed to provide more certainty to the generic drug approval process and help get generic drugs to the market more quickly. As indicated in our March 3, 2004, Federal Register notice (69 FR 9982), FDA has been considering what steps to take in light of the passage of the MMA. This guidance is one step.
As directed by the MMA, this document provides guidance on the definition of a listed drug. A listed drug is required to be referenced in a generic application and indicates the approved drug the generic company is relying upon for approval of its version of the product. The guidance is intended to clarify when a change to a generic application should reference a different listed drug from the listed drug referenced in the original generic application, and thus be made through the submission of an entirely new application that encompasses the desired change.