[ejang0]

"Apparently during the conference call, when [the Sarepta CEO] was asked about why he was so confident [about the Duchenne muscular dystrophy medication's approval], he said that the FDA's CBER head Peter Marks was "very supportive". [...]

Boy, was that the truth. The agency has just granted that use expansion, and it turns out that it was all due to Peter Marks, who completely overruled three review teams and two of his highest-level staffers (all of whom said that Sarepta had not proven its case)."

[The article then talks about how this may be "A positive vote, which marks an undeserved and potentially hazardous victory of emotional rhetoric and relentless patient advocacy over the scientific and medical evidence."]

This is interesting. I didn't know about the influence of the CEO and this narrative around this medications approval/label expansion.

I'm not sure why I'm mentioning this (Devil's advocacy?), some users on HN have also commented that maybe it is good that the FDA approves medications more liberally to give clinicians and patients a chance to experiment with them (if their situations are dire).

Anyways, in this case, it is interesting to think about how much influence one person can have in the FDA.

Sort of related, does anyone remember the approval of aducanumab for Alzheimer's disease? https://www.npr.org/2021/06/11/1005567149/3-experts-have-res...

And now it is discontinued: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK573062/ This isn't really a good source for the full story, sorry.

All this FDA approval business is much less cut and dry than I would have thought 10 years ago.