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Nonproprietary Naming of Biological Products: Update Guidance for Industry

DraftCenter for Drug Evaluation and Research Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research03/08/2019

Description

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA, Agency, or we) is announcing the availability of a draft guidance for industry entitled “Nonproprietary Naming of Biological Products: Update.” This draft guidance describes FDA's current thinking on nonproprietary names of biological products licensed under the Public Health Service Act (PHS Act) that do not include an FDA-designated suffix. Specifically, the nonproprietary names of these products need not be revised to accomplish the objectives of the naming convention described in the final guidance for industry, “Nonproprietary Naming of Biological Products,” dated January 2017. Similarly, FDA does not intend to apply the naming convention described in the final guidance for industry, “Nonproprietary Naming of Biological Products,” to biological products that are the subject of an approved application under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) as of March 23, 2020, when such an application is deemed to be a biologics license application (BLA) under the PHS Act (transition biological products). FDA is also reconsidering whether vaccines should be within the scope of the naming convention. In addition, the draft guidance describes FDA's current thinking on the appropriate suffix format for the nonproprietary name of an interchangeable biological product licensed under the PHS Act. Based on the comments received in the docket, we intend to revise the final guidance, “Nonproprietary Naming of Biological Products,” dated January 2017 and to amend sections in that document regarding the subjects addressed in this draft guidance.

Scope & Applicability

Product Classes

8
Transition Biological Product

A biological product subject to an approved application under section 505 of the FD&C Act transitioning to a BLA

Reference Product

The biological product to which a biosimilar is compared

Vaccine

Preventative or therapeutic vaccines for infectious diseases.

Therapeutic Protein Products

Guidance on immunogenicity assessment and testing

Vaccines

Products for which batch/lot information is particularly important

Transition Biological Products

products approved under section 505 of the FD&C Act deemed to be BLAs

Biosimilar Product

biological products shown to be biosimilar to a reference product

Interchangeable Product

Biosimilar product determined to be interchangeable with the reference product

Stakeholders

2
Health Care Provider

Physicians, veterinarians, dentists, and other licensed professionals

Sponsor

Entity responsible for submitting applications under section 524B

Regulatory Context

Attributes

2
Suffix

distinguishing four lowercase letter addition to the core name

Core Name

component of the proper name

Related CFR Sections (1)

Related Warning Letters (1)

  • CGMP/Blood & Blood Components/Adulterated

    Hemarus LLC

    2024-10-15

See Also (8)

Nonproprietary Naming of Biological Products: Update Guidance for Industry | Guideline Explorer | BioRegHub