The FDA has finalized guidelines for how manufacturers can distribute information to doctors about unapproved uses for drugs or medical devices. The ‘‘Good Reprint Practices for the
Distribution of Medical Journal Articles and Medical or Scientific Reference Publications on Unapproved New Uses of Approved Drugs and Approved or Cleared Medical Devices’’ allows for the limited dissemination of medical journal articles describing off-label uses. The FDA proposed the guidelines in February, 2008 and took public comments before finalizing them.

Allegations of off-label promotion are common in mass tort litigation involving drugs and medical devices. Off-label promotion is illegal, but many critics of the industry and plaintiff lawyers seem to forget that doctors can prescribe drugs for any use they see as medically appropriate. The FDA in its guidelines confirms that the public health can be served when health-care professionals receive truthful and non-misleading scientific and medical information on unapproved uses. It will likely help practitioners to receive timely and accurate medical information in an environment where off-label use is common. The FDA’s guidance will help assure that medical professionals receive timely and accurate medical information prior to the lengthy process of securing FDA approval for wider use. Such off-label use can save lives, especially in practice areas where there are few effective treatments. These off-label uses or treatment regimens thus may be quite important and may even constitute the medically recognized standard of care. Accordingly, the public health may be advanced by healthcare professionals’ receipt of medical journal articles and medical or scientific reference publications on unapproved new uses of approved or cleared medical products that are truthful and not misleading.

This guidance is being issued consistent with FDA’s good guidance practices regulation (21 CFR 10.115), and suggest that the distribution be in the form of an unabridged reprint, copy of an article, or reference publication;  not be marked, highlighted, summarized, or characterized by the manufacturer in any way (except to provide the accompanying disclosures discussed in the guidance), and be accompanied by the approved labeling for the drug or medical device.

The guidance represents the agency’s current thinking on the dissemination of medical journal articles and medical or scientific reference publications on unapproved uses of approved drugs and approved or cleared medical devices to healthcare professionals and healthcare entities.