As part of Washington’s late response to the Ebola outbreak crisis, the House and Senate in the past week have passed legislation that if signed by the President as expected will add Ebola and other filoviruses to the list of diseases eligible for fast track review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the FDA Priority Review Voucher Program (Program).

The FDA Program awards vouchers to sponsors of human drug applications that are approved to prevent or treat designated tropical diseases. A voucher entitles the holder to have a future human drug application acted upon by the FDA within six months.

The House on December 3, 2014 and the Senate on December 10, 2014 respectively passed the “FDA Priority Review Voucher Program Act,” (S.B. 2917/H.B. 5729) (the “Bill”) that will amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to add Ebola and other filoviruses to the list of diseases covered by the Program. The Bill also seeks to expedite FDA approval of Ebola and other designated disease treatments by:

• Changing the process by which infectious diseases that do not significantly impact developed nations and disproportionately affect poor and marginalized populations can be designated as tropical diseases from rulemaking to order of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
• Allowing priority review vouchers to be transferred between sponsors of human drug applications any number of times.
• Reducing from 365 days to 90 days the advance notice required before submitting a human drug application subject to a priority review voucher.

Congress sent the Bill to the President just one day after Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell today announced a declaration under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act HHS says it hopes will “facilitate the development and availability of experimental Ebola vaccines in hopes of  helping combat the current epidemic in West Africa and help prevent future outbreaks there.”

Fighting the disease in Africa has been the primary focus of the Obama Administration’s Ebola response.  The December 9, 2014 HHS declaration provides immunity under United States law against legal claims related to the manufacturing, testing, development, distribution, and administration of three vaccines for Ebola virus disease. It does not, generally, provide immunity for a claim brought in a court outside the United States.

For many years, the U.S. has encouraged vaccine development by managing liability and compensation, starting with the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The PREP Act was designed to facilitate the development of medical countermeasures to respond to urgent public health needs, including the development of critical vaccines like those to prevent the spread of Ebola. This U.S. declaration under the PREP act is part of a global dialogue to address these issues in the U.S., and other countries where the vaccine is being developed, manufactured and potentially used.

“My strong hope in issuing this PREP Act declaration in the United States is that other nations will also enact appropriate liability protection and compensation legislation,” said Secretary Burwell. “As a global community, we must ensure that legitimate concerns about liability do not hold back the possibility of developing an Ebola vaccine, an essential strategy in our global response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.”

HHS hopes the PREP Act declaration will strengthen the incentive to conduct research and spur development, manufacturing, and the potential use of the vaccines in large scale vaccination campaigns in West Africa. The PREP Act declaration provides legal protection under U.S. law for three vaccine candidates:

• the GlaxoSmithKline’s Recombinant Replication Deficient Chimpanzee Adenovirus Type 3-Vectored Ebola Zaire Vaccine known as ChAd3-EBO-Z;
• the BPSC1001 vaccine, known as rVSV-ZEBOV-GP, made by BioProtection Services Corporation, a subsidiary of Newlink Genetics; and
• the Ad26.ZEBOV/MVA-BN-Filo vaccine manufactured by Janssen Corporation, subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson/Bavarian Nordic.

Similar PREP Act declarations have been issued, revised or renewed 14 times since the Act was signed in 2005. Past declarations have covered vaccines used in H5N1 pandemic influenza clinical trials in 2008, products related to the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, and the development and manufacturing of antitoxins to treat botulism in 2008.  For more information about the PREP Act, see here .

The Bill and the HHS PREP Act declaration are the latest efforts to provide what many health care providers see as a long overdue response to the Ebola outbreak in the wake of the diagnosis and subsequent death of an Ebola patient in Dallas lead to his death and the infection of nurses involved in his treatment, and a small number of other Ebola victims in the United States raised national awareness and concern.

For More Information Or Assistance

If you need assistance reviewing or responding to these or other health care related developments or other risk management, compliance, enforcement or management concerns, the author of this update, attorney Cynthia Marcotte Stamer, may be able to help. Vice President of the North Texas Health Care Compliance Professionals Association, Past Chair of the ABA Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Section and the former Board Compliance Chair of the National Kidney Foundation of North Texas, Ms. Stamer has more than 26 years experience advising health industry clients about these and other matters. Her experience includes advising hospitals, nursing home, home health, rehabilitation and other health care providers and health industry clients to establish and administer compliance and risk management policies; prevent, conduct and investigate, and respond to peer review and other quality concerns; and to respond to Board of Medicine, Department of Aging & Disability, Drug Enforcement Agency, OCR Privacy and Civil Rights, HHS, DOD and other health care industry investigation, enforcement and other compliance, public policy, regulatory, staffing, and other operations and risk management concerns.  The scribe for the American Bar Association (ABA) Joint Committee on Employee Benefits annual agency meeting with the Department of Health & Human Services Office of Civil Rights,  Ms. Stamer has worked extensively with health care providers, health plans, health care clearinghouses, their business associates, employers, banks and other financial institutions, and others on risk management and compliance with HIPAA and other information privacy and data security rules, investigating and responding to known or suspected breaches, defending investigations or other actions by plaintiffs, OCR and other federal or state agencies, reporting known or suspected violations, business associate and other contracting, commenting or obtaining other clarification of guidance, training and enforcement, and a host of other related concerns.  Her clients include public and private health care providers, health insurers, health plans, technology and other vendors, and others.  In addition to representing and advising these organizations, she also has conducted training on Privacy & The Pandemic for the Association of State & Territorial Health Plans,  as well as  HIPAA, FACTA, PCI, medical confidentiality, insurance confidentiality and other privacy and data security compliance and risk management for  Los Angeles County Health Department, ISSA, HIMMS, the ABA, SHRM, schools, medical societies, government and private health care and health plan organizations, their business associates, trade associations and others.

A popular lecturer and widely published author on health industry concerns, Ms. Stamer continuously advises health industry clients about compliance and internal controls, workforce and medical staff performance, quality, governance, reimbursement, and other risk management and operational matters. Ms. Stamer also publishes and speaks extensively on health and managed care industry regulatory, staffing and human resources, compensation and benefits, technology, public policy, reimbursement and other operations and risk management concerns. Her insights on these and other related matters appear in the Health Care Compliance Association, Atlantic Information Service, Bureau of National Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insurance, the Dallas Morning News, Modern Health Care, Managed Healthcare, Health Leaders, and a many other national and local publications.  You can get more information about her health industry experience here. If you need assistance responding to concerns about the matters discussed in this publication or other health care concerns, wish to obtain information about arranging for training or presentations by Ms. Stamer, wish to suggest a topic for a future program or update, or wish to request other information or materials, please contact Ms. Stamer via telephone at (214) 452-8297 or via e-mail here.

If you or someone else you know would like to receive future updates about developments on these and other concerns from Ms. Stamer, see here.

About Solutions Law Press

Solutions Law Press™ provides business risk management, legal compliance, management effectiveness and other resources, training and education on human resources, employee benefits, compensation, data security and privacy, health care, insurance, and other key compliance, risk management, internal controls and other key operational concerns. If you find this of interest, you also be interested reviewing some of our other Solutions Law Press resources including:

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©2014 Cynthia Marcotte Stamer, P.C. Non-exclusive license to republish granted to Solutions Law Press.  All other rights reserved.