The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is making two prerecorded webinars and a slide presentation publicly available on its website to help drug sponsors understand recent changes to the submission process for new animal drug applications (NADAs) and related submissions.

According to FDA, the changes take effect Oct. 1, 2018, as part of the Animal Drug & Animal Generic Drug User Fee Amendments of 2018, which reauthorized the Animal Drug User Fee Act (ADUFA) and the Animal Generic Drug User Fee Act (AGDUFA).

Webinar 1: Reviewing an Original NADA for an ADAA Feed-Use Combination Drug in 60 Days

This webinar describes how FDA evaluates and processes an original NADA for a feed-use combination drug that may qualify for a 60-day review timeline under the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996 (ADAA). An original NADA is the first application submitted to FDA for approval of a drug for a specific use in a specific animal species (or group of animal species). For qualifying applications, the usual 180-day review timeline will be reduced to 60 days.

Certain feed-use combination drugs are regulated under the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996, which amended the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) and gave FDA some flexibility in the way the agency regulates medicated feed for animals. If multiple new animal drugs are approved for use in the same medicated feed, the product is called a feed-use combination drug. To be eligible for an approval as a feed-use combination drug (also referred to as an ADAA combination drug), the ADAA requires each drug in the combination to be previously and separately approved (under section 512(b)(1) of the FD&C Act) prior to the submission of an NADA for the feed-use combination drug itself.

The webinar discusses:

* How FDA determines if an original NADA for an ADAA feed-use combination drug is eligible for the new 60-day review timeline;

* Which actions the drug sponsor needs to initiate under the investigational new animal drug (INAD) file before submitting the original NADA;

* Which documents the drug sponsor is required to submit in the original NADA;

* What happens when the review timeline is lengthened to 100 days for an original NADA that initially qualified for a 60-day review timeline, but later required a minor amendment to address FDA’s concerns, and

* What happens when the original NADA does not qualify for the 60-day review timeline and the 180-day review timeline applies.

Webinar 2: Reopening a Completed Environmental Impact Technical Section and Reviewing a Categorical Exclusion in 60 Days

This webinar informs drug sponsors about FDA’s process for reopening an Environmental Impact technical section when there has been a change in the proposed conditions of use for the drug after the technical section was completed. This process only applies when a drug sponsor has submitted all technical sections for the pending approval to FDA.

The Environmental Impact technical section is a major technical section required for all NADAs. Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, FDA must consider how the environment will be affected if the agency approves an animal drug. To do this, the agency requires that drug sponsors prepare an environmental assessment (EA). This assessment describes how much drug is expected to get into the environment and its potential direct and indirect environmental effects. Instead of submitting an EA, the drug sponsor can ask FDA for a categorical exclusion (CE). A CE means that the drug approval is unlikely to have a significant effect on the environment.

The webinar discusses:

* The types of changes that would result in reopening a completed Environmental Impact technical section;

* Which submissions qualify for a 60-day review timeline;

* The administrative process for communicating and documenting the reopened Environmental Impact technical section; and

* How to resubmit a CE claim through eSubmitter.

Slide Presentation: Tissue Residue Method

This slide presentation describes the processes that FDA has put in place to ensure that method demonstrations for analytical methods for residues of new animal drugs take place within 120 days of FDA’s determination that the method is adequately validated for the method demonstration.

For new animal drugs intended for use in a food-producing animal, FDA requires a practicable analytical method to identify unsafe drug residues in the edible tissues of the animal. The analytical method is validated by the drug sponsor, then undergoes a method transfer trial to show that the method can be transferred to a new laboratory with a naïve analyst. The method demonstration is a step in the acceptance of the practicable method where the drug sponsor’s laboratory staff demonstrates performance of the method at CVM’s Office of Research for other participants in the method transfer trial.

The slide presentation discusses:

* The submissions related to the practicable method that are expected prior to the method demonstration;

* Changes at CVM to meet the timeline, and

* How to request the method demonstration meeting through eSubmitter.

Links to the prerecorded webinars and the slide presentation are available on the Training Resources for Submitting Animal Drug Applications page.