Prescription Drug User Fee Act date, in short, PDUFA date, refers to the date/period by which the FDA is mandated to give its verdict on the regulatory application filed by the sponsor company. The verdict can be an ‘approved’ decision, or a ‘complete response letter’ or a delay due to reasons specific to the company or extraneous to the company.

PDUFA was passed in the U.S. in 1992, which allows the FDA to collect fees from the sponsor company to fund the review process.

A CRL is issued by the FDA when it deems that the regulatory application is not complete in its current form. The deficiencies usually that lead to rejection could be the need for additional clinical studies to establish the efficacy and/or safety of the treatment option, problems with chemistry, manufacturing and controls, etc.

A delay in the review period may stem from the FDA needs additional time to review any additional data/information that may have been tabled subsequent to the submission of the regulatory application or the FDA’s inability to complete site inspections where the drug ingredients are being made etc.

The FDA may mention a specific date or a period (say Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, first-half, second-half, the name of the month) as the timeline by which a decision will be given. If the FDA does not mention any timeline, the company may roughly calculate a timeline based on the data of filing the regulatory application. If the company doesn’t provide a timeline either, it is left to the investors to do the calculations.

A regulatory application (NDA, sNDA, BLA, sBLA, etc.) is usually accepted for standard review or priority review. A standard review will mean the FDA has to hand out its verdict within 10 months of filing the application. The review window for a priority review gets shortened to six months.

Once a company files for a regulatory application, the FDA takes up to 60 days to respond with an ‘accepted for review’ or ‘refuse-to-file’ decision.

A Catalysts Calendar is one way of tracking all the decisions in a single place. Usually, the FDA puts out a release and/or communicates to the company, which in turn will issue a press release.