When the CDC’s top ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee met last week to re­view whether a hand­ful of very rare but po­ten­tial­ly fa­tal blood clots with low platelets might be linked to J&J’s Covid-19 vac­cine, the as­sump­tion was that the com­mit­tee would, at the very least, fol­low its own agen­da and vote on whether to wait for more da­ta, or make in­ter­im age- or risk-based rec­om­men­da­tions for the vac­cine.

In­stead, the com­mit­tee did nei­ther, punt­ing its vote un­til this Fri­day when it can hold a longer dis­cus­sion with the lat­est da­ta. None of the ACIP mem­bers raised ma­jor con­cerns with the de­ci­sion, or lack there­of, de­spite some calls to not pause the vac­cine in­def­i­nite­ly.

But the in­ac­tion al­so raised con­cerns about whether the CDC and FDA were shirk­ing their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and un­nec­es­sar­i­ly de­lay­ing J&J vac­ci­na­tions as the race to slow the spread of the coro­n­avirus con­tin­ues.

In con­trast, the Eu­ro­pean Med­i­cines Agency’s safe­ty com­mit­tee quick­ly con­clud­ed its re­view of the blood clots and the J&J vac­cine on Tues­day, de­cid­ing the vac­cine’s ben­e­fits out­weigh the risks, while adding a warn­ing to the vac­cine’s la­bel, even as no one in Eu­rope has re­ceived the vac­cine yet. Fol­low­ing the com­mit­tee’s an­nounce­ment, J&J said it would re­sume ship­ments of the vac­cine.

At first blush, the EMA, which just went through a sim­i­lar re­view with As­traZeneca’s vac­cine and came to a sim­i­lar con­clu­sion, seems to have been the more proac­tive reg­u­la­tor. The EMA made a quick de­ci­sion on the avail­able da­ta and re-start­ed the process for get­ting more shots in­to arms.

But be­yond the head­line and fi­nal de­ci­sion lies a very dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

In the case of the CDC’s com­mit­tee, any mem­ber of the pub­lic (any­where in the world) could turn on a com­put­er and watch the pro­ceed­ings, lis­ten to the se­ri­ous­ness of the de­tails, hear the ar­gu­ments and see the slides that each of the com­mit­tee mem­bers re­view. The pub­lic even has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to weigh in at the CDC meet­ing, al­though it’s un­clear how those com­ments are ac­tu­al­ly used.

The ACIP de­ci­sion to de­lay ac­tion and wait for more da­ta on the blood clots may seem like an al­most neg­li­gent re­sponse, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the EMA’s snap de­ci­sion, when time is of the essence. But the risk cal­cu­la­tions for the two re­gions are very dif­fer­ent. The US has more of the Pfiz­er and Mod­er­na Covid vac­cines than the EU to fill the gap left by the J&J pause. The US al­so has about 10 mil­lion dos­es of the J&J vac­cine wait­ing on shelves so if the FDA and CDC of­fer a green­light, those dos­es will im­me­di­ate­ly be ad­min­is­tered.

Al­so, the EMA’s safe­ty com­mit­tee com­plet­ed its analy­sis of the J&J and As­traZeneca vac­cine da­ta be­hind closed doors, on­ly of­fer­ing a peek in­to what oc­curred via lim­it­ed press re­leas­es and press con­fer­ences that usu­al­ly lead to as many new ques­tions as an­swers.

Pe­ter Ar­lett

For in­stance, at each of the EMA press con­fer­ences on the vac­cine la­bel up­dates, Pe­ter Ar­lett, the head of phar­ma­covig­i­lance at the EMA, has un­veiled new fig­ures on the cas­es of blood clots with low platelets for each of the vac­cines au­tho­rized in the EU.

But in do­ing so, Ar­lett fails to of­fer any fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on how many to­tal dos­es of the vac­cines have been ad­min­is­tered or where these new cas­es oc­curred. At least twice now, ei­ther Ar­lett or some­one else at the EMA has had to cor­rect or clar­i­fy what the num­bers mean, or where the cas­es did or did not oc­cur.

If the EMA is go­ing to re­lease these num­bers, why not put them in a press re­lease and ful­ly ex­plain them? In­stead, the agency leaves it to the pub­lic to de­cide on what they might mean, which is con­cern­ing as they are not ap­ples-to-ap­ples com­par­isons. Pfiz­er see­ing 25 cas­es of the blood clots and low platelets ver­sus J&J see­ing 8 cas­es are not com­pa­ra­ble con­sid­er­ing how many tens of mil­lions of more dos­es of the Pfiz­er vac­cine have been ad­min­is­tered.

In oth­er in­stances (e.g. re­leas­ing clin­i­cal tri­al re­sults), the EMA has tak­en a lead­ing role in show­ing the world how trans­paren­cy works. But in this case, even with the FDA and CDC tak­ing ex­tra days to make its de­ci­sion, and even if the de­ci­sion is to re­strict the use of the J&J vac­cine to a spe­cif­ic pop­u­la­tion, the im­por­tance of trans­paren­cy is clear.

Since losing a controversial court case over orphan drug exclusivity last year, the FDA’s Office of Orphan Products Development has remained entirely silent on orphan exclusivity for any product approved since last November, leaving many sponsors in limbo on what to expect.

That silence means that for more than 70 orphan-designated indications for more than 60 products, OOPD has issued no public determination on the seven-year orphan exclusivity in the Orange Book, and no new listings of orphan exclusivity appear in OOPD’s searchable database, as highlighted recently by George O’Brien, a partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington, DC office.

As the FDA remains silent on orphan drug exclusivity in the wake of a controversial court case, the agency continues to hand out new designations. The latest: Algernon Pharmaceuticals’ experimental lung disease drug ifenprodil.

The Vancouver-based company announced on Monday that ifenprodil received orphan designation in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic lung condition that results in scarring of the lungs.  Most IPF patients suffer with a dry cough, and breathing can become difficult.

Innoforce is off to the races at its new site in the city of Hangzhou, China.

The Chinese CDMO announced last week that it has started manufacturing at the new facility, which was built to offer process development and manufacturing operations for RNA, plasmid DNA, viral vectors and other cell therapeutics. It will also serve as Innoforce’s corporate HQ.

The company said it’s investing more than $200 million in the 550,000-square-foot manufacturing base for advanced therapies. The GMP manufacturing facility features space for producing plasmids with three 30-liter bioreactors. For viral vector manufacturing, Innoforce also has 200- and 500-liter bioreactors at its disposal, along with eight suites to make cell therapies. The site also includes several labs and warehouse spaces.

We now know why Verve’s lead candidate was placed on hold last month by US regulators.

In an SEC filing, Verve laid out the FDA’s conditions for lifting the hold on its lead therapy, VERVE-101. That includes submitting preclinical data about potency differences in human versus non-human cells, risks of gene editing germline cells, and off-target analyses in non-hepatocyte cell types.

The FDA also wants clinical data from the ongoing Heart-1 trial, and to modify the trial protocol in the US to add additional contraceptive measures and increase the length of a staggering interval between the dosing of participants.