FDA’s bigger piggy bank

FDA plans to use a proposed record-setting funding boost to invest in projects it believes could lead to fundamental improvements in the way medical products are tested, reviewed and manufactured. The goal is to use regulatory innovation to help industry create better medicines, manufactured less expensively and more reliably, that reach patients more quickly.

The agency wants to kick-start the transition to advanced manufacturing technologies for drugs, vaccines and cell therapies, fund the creation of natural history databases to accelerate the development of medicines for rare diseases, and use technology to streamline reviews of generic drugs...