Priority review vouchers have helped to improve access to drugs targeting neglected diseases

Forbes

22 April 2019 - The FDA priority review vouchers for neglected tropical diseases are aimed to incentivise pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs or vaccines for neglected tropical disease. 

The vouchers do this by providing a six-month expedited review of another drug within that company's development pipeline if they receive FDA approval for such a drug (or the voucher can be sold to another company). Though critics have claimed that the program doesn't require the treatments to be novel or affordable, the program has been successful in ensuring a number of new medications for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) have been developed and launched in an accessible way.

Pharmaceutical companies have brought a number of already existing drugs to market and received a priority review voucher. These are drugs that had been approved by other regulatory agencies – sometimes decades ago - and were in use and often on the World Health Organization's Essential Drug List.

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Michael Wonder

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Michael Wonder