Current Trends in Clinical Development of Gene and Cellular Therapeutic Products for Cancer in Japan

Regulatory oversight of cell therapy in China: Government's efforts in patient access and therapeutic innovation

In recent years, remarkable progress has been made in the fundamental research and on clinical development of cell therapy. Although China has launched a series of regulations to establish a proper regulatory framework that facilitates the development of cell therapy products, the regulatory framework has not been able to meet the country's regulatory requirements. This article introduced the development of regulation and current regulatory pathways for cell therapy in China and identified the main challenges in clinical studies. China has recently tightened its policy on cell therapy clinical studies after medical chaos occurred in the area of cell therapy over the past few years. Currently the regulatory jurisdiction between NMPA and NHC are not very clear, especially for clinical somatic cell research, further efforts are necessary to establish a legislative system with a clear and functional regulatory framework for cell therapy.

Flexible and Expedited Regulatory Review Processes for Innovative Medicines and Regenerative Medical Products in the US, the EU, and Japan

Several expedited regulatory review projects for innovative drugs and regenerative medical products have been developed in the US, the EU, and Japan. Each regulatory agency has elaborated an original regulatory framework and adopted regulatory projects developed by the other regulatory agencies. For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first developed the breakthrough therapy designation, and then the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) introduced the Sakigake designation and the priority medicines (PRIME) designation, respectively. In addition, the necessity of the product being first development in Japan is the original feature of the Sakigake designation, while actively supporting the development of advanced-therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) by academia or small/medium-sized sponsors is the original feature of the PRIME; these particular features are different from the breakthrough therapy designation in the US. In this review article, flexible and expedited review processes for new drugs, and cell and gene therapies in the US, the EU, and Japan are described. Moreover, all the drugs and regenerative medical products that were granted conditional approval or Sakigake designation in Japan are listed and analyzed herein.