Democratic senators urge FDA to take action against drug company that hid faulty data

A group of Democratic senators is urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take action against a drug company that hid falsified data from the government while seeking approval for a $2.1 million gene therapy. 

Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) led the senators, which include 2020 presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in pushing the FDA to take “appropriate” criminal, civil and regulatory actions against AveXis for not disclosing inaccuracies in its product testing data until after it was approved. 

{mosads}AveXis, a subsidiary of Novartis, knew of the issue in March, but didn’t tell the FDA about it until June 28. The drug, Zolgensma, which treats spinal muscular atrophy in infants, was approved for sale by the FDA on May 24. 

It is the most expensive drug in American history.

“It is unconscionable that a drug company would provide manipulated data to federal regulators in order to rush its product to market, reap federal perks, and charge the highest amount in American history for its medication,” the senators said in a letter to Ned Sharpless, the acting FDA commissioner. 

The FDA announced the news this week and said it might pursue criminal or civil penalties against the company. The FDA also said it would have delayed approval of the drug had it known about the faulty data. 

However, Novartis officials said this week it delayed telling the FDA about the faulty data because it was conducting its own internal investigation. 

“Typically what we did in this case is exactly what we do in every case: informing the agency once we actually understand the information we have in hand,” Rob Kowalski, Novartis’s head of regulatory affairs, said in a conference call Wednesday.

But the Democratic senators argued Novartis hid the data because it was “in a rush to make a profit.” 

“Such greed cannot be condoned by the FDA … Anything short of a forceful response would signal a green light to future pharmaceutical misbehavior.”