The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued new draft guidance for industry on evaluating the safety of new drugs for type 2 diabetes and removed the “outdated” 12-year-old requirement for standardized cardiovascular outcomes trials (CVOTs).
The new draft guidance, “Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Evaluating the Safety of New Drugs for Improving Glycemic Control,” will replace the December 2008 requirement that manufacturers conduct CVOTs to rule out unacceptable cardiovascular safety risk. That move followed concerns raised at the time about the thiazolidinedione class of glucose-lowering drugs.
Since then, “FDA has reviewed the results of several [CVOTs] conducted to meet the December 2008 guidance recommendations. None of the CVOTs to date have identified an increased risk of ischemic cardiovascular events; some of the CVOTs have instead demonstrated a reduced risk for cardiovascular events,” according to the federal register announcement.
In October 2018, the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee narrowly voted (10 to 9) to continue requiring CVOTs, but most panel members also recommended some changes to them, including requirements for safety data beyond cardiovascular events.
Based on the CVOT results over the years and the panel’s recommendations, “FDA is revisiting the recommendations of the December 2008 guidance and is now proposing an updated approach to evaluating the safety of new drugs and biologics to improve glycemic control.”
“The new draft guidance does not contain the recommendation that sponsors of all new therapies for type 2 diabetes uniformly rule out a specific degree of risk for ischemic cardiovascular adverse outcomes,” the FDA said.
Instead, the draft calls for at least 4000 patient-years of exposure to the new drug in phase 3 trials and inclusion of study participants with comorbid conditions and/or diabetes complications, including at least 500 with stage 3-4 chronic kidney disease, 600 with established cardiovascular disease, and at least 600 over the age of 65 years.
The FDA is soliciting stakeholder input on these and other issues, including study duration, subject demographics, specific safety concerns, and event adjudication.
In a statement, Lisa Yanoff, MD, acting director of the Division for Metabolism and Endocrinology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said: “By following previous FDA recommendations, sponsors have shown that new type 2 diabetes drugs do not have excess ischemic cardiovascular risk, which has provided reassuring cardiovascular safety information for millions of diabetes patients. Now, with this proposed approach, we will have broader, valuable safety information for these medications.”
The draft is open for comments for 90 days after March 9, 2020. It is available online, along with a link for submitting comments.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.