BRIEF—FDA issues new draft guidance on real-world data

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a draft guidance for drugmakers relating to the use of real-world evidence (RWE).

In the guidance, titled Real-World Data: Assessing Registries to Support Regulatory Decision-Making for Drug and Biological Products, advice is provided for companies either designing a registry or proposing to use an existing registry to support a regulatory decision about a drug’s effectiveness or safety.

The draft guidance provides recommendations for a registry’s fitness-for-use in regulatory decision-making, focusing on attributes that support the collection of relevant and reliable data.

It also provides considerations when linking a registry to another data source for supplemental information, such as data from medical claims, electronic health records, digital health technologies, or another registry.

Finally, the guidance provides considerations for supporting the FDA’s review of submissions that include registry data.

This draft guidance is part of a series of guidances that FDA has already published, or plans to publish, as part of the agency’s RWE Program and in support of the 21st Century Cures Act and Prescription Drug User Fee Act.