FDA may need to 'get cre­ative' if abor­tion pill ap­proval pulled this week

With the FDA’s gold stan­dard ap­proval au­thor­i­ty on the line, the agency’s re­ac­tion af­ter a court de­ci­sion this week on whether to keep the ap­proval of preterm birth drug mifepri­s­tone will be para­mount to avoid any fur­ther rip­ple ef­fects.

So what ex­act­ly are FDA’s op­tions? Let’s break down a few sce­nar­ios.

One of the like­li­er sce­nar­ios: If the De­part­ment of Jus­tice’s ap­peal at the Fifth Cir­cuit is de­nied to­mor­row — the Fifth Cir­cuit is more con­ser­v­a­tive than SCO­TUS — the gov­ern­ment will like­ly seek emer­gency re­lief from the Supreme Court, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the oth­er or­der from a Wash­ing­ton state court, ac­cord­ing to the law firm Ropes & Gray. While that process is on­go­ing, mifepri­s­tone would re­main on the mar­ket.

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