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.

Indian-based generics manufacturer Aurobindo Pharma has been in the crosshairs of the FDA for several years now, but the company is also attracting attention from regulators within the subcontinent.

According to the Indian business news site Business Standard, a warning letter was sent to the company from the Securities Exchange Board of India, or SEBI.

The letter is related to disclosures made by the company on an ongoing FDA audit of the company’s Unit-1 API facility in Hyderabad, India as well as observations made by the US regulator between 2019 and 2022.

Spero Therapeutics has been struggling in the past few years, dealing with FDA holds and staff reductions amidst a rough biotech market, and the latest news from the Massachusetts-based company confirms what it anticipated in May: a CRL.

The company was slapped with the no-go for its NDA, the biotech disclosed Monday. The company was seeking approval for tebipenem HBr oral tablets, intended for the treatment of adult patients with complicated urinary tract infection, or cUTI, including pyelonephritis. The FDA had set a PDUFA date of June 27.

Axsome’s on-and-off quest to obtain an FDA approval for their depression drug AXS-05 is back on again.

After the markets closed on Monday, the biotech issued a short, simple alert in an SEC filing saying the team had “received from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (the “FDA”) proposed labeling for the Company’s AXS-05 product candidate with respect to its New Drug Application (the “NDA”) for AXS-05 for the treatment of major depressive disorder. The Company is reviewing the proposed labeling and will reply to the FDA to secure final labeling agreement.”

While Massachusetts-based Charles River Laboratories has been on an acquisition spree, they are not against planting their flag. The latest move by the company sees them crossing the pond to establish a manufacturing site in the UK.

The company on Tuesday opened its cell and gene therapy manufacturing center at Bruntwood SciTech’s Alderley Park in Cheshire, United Kingdom. The expansion follows Charles River’s acquisition of Cognate BioServices and Cobra Biologics in 2021 for $875 million. Cognate is a plasmid DNA, viral vector and cell therapy CDMO.