While waiting for what we hope will be good news on the outcome...

While waiting for what we hope will be good news on the outcome of the meetings up north, I have found some info on how the FDA themselves assess their handling of their role and responsibilities under the COVID crisis and the workload placed on them by the measures taken to deal with it by the U.S. government, and what the FDA future direction should/could take, which I suggest is well worth watching.

It is on the FDA Rare Disease Day 2021 Webinar held on March 5 (see company announcement dated March 4) https://tinyurl.com/FDA-Rare-Disease-Day - note - the FDA is an Agency within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services which was restructured effective March 31, 2019 to modernise to meet changing requirements (meaning COVID I expect).

The Webinar is about 6 hours long, and I started to watch it yesterday, but was unable to stay focused through a series of mostly highly credentialled talking heads grouped together in panel sessions providing an account of what their own divisions have done to meet the requirements put on them due to the COVID crisis.

I found one of the Panel Sessions with a member who spoke in a clear and effective manner. He is Dr. Christopher Alston, Director, Centre for Advancing Transitional Sciences (NCATS) in Panel 3 - strategies to support rare disease product development during COVID 19. I'm not suggesting that other speakers on the webinar did not have equally effective input, it is just that there were far too many for me cope with. Panel 3 starts at 3hrs47minutes into the webmail and runs for about 1 hour. Dr. Ashtons' contribution is spaced out throughout the session so you have to stay with it to hear it all. His fellow panel members all indicated that they concur with his views, and he also says that he has discussed them with the FDA head Dr. Woodcock.