The Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health have launched a joint initiative to accelerate the process of moving potential new therapies and treatments from research to market, officials from both agencies said during a news conference.
“We hope that starting today, with the work of both our agencies, that we will be able to speed the process from microscope to marketplace,” said NIH Director Francis Collins, M.D.
The two-pronged initiative aims to better link translational science—the shaping of discoveries into treatment—to regulatory science—the development of tools, standards and processes for assessing new treatment safety and efficacy and bring products to market.
As a part of the initiative, the FDA and the NIH have established a joint leadership council that will help link biomedical research planning to public health issues. The group is expected to hold its first public meeting some time this spring, during which it will solicit input from the public, said Collins. The NIH and the FDA will also make $6.75 million available over the next three years to help fund regulatory science research, officials said.
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