Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the expanded use of a cooling cap, DigniCap Cooling System, to reduce hair loss (alopecia) during chemotherapy. This is the first cooling cap cleared by the agency for use in cancer patients with solid tumors.

A New York smoked fish company has been ordered by a federal court to stop selling its products, which were produced in a facility that was contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes (L. mono), until it can comply with food safety regulations.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today allowed marketing of ClearLLab Reagents (T1, T2, B1, B2, M), the first agency authorized test for use with flow cytometry to aid in the detection of several leukemias and lymphomas, including chronic leukemia, acute leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN).

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration unveiled a strategic plan to eliminate the agency’s existing orphan designation request backlog and ensure continued timely response to all new requests for designation with firm deadlines. The agency’s Orphan Drug Modernization Plan comes a week after FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb committed to eliminating the backlog within 90 days and responding to all new requests for designation within 90 days of receipt during his testimony before a Senate subcommittee.

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking two new, important steps to increase competition in the market for prescription drugs and facilitate entry

of lower-cost alternatives. The agency published a list of off-patent, off-exclusivity branded drugs without approved generics, and also implemented, for the

first time, a new policy to expedite the review of generic drug applications where competition is limited.

In late 2012, the United States faced the most serious outbreak associated with contaminated compounded drugs in recent history, involving hundreds of people, in many states, who developed fungal infections related to a compounded product. It was an incident that resulted in dozens of deaths.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Haegarda, the first C1 Esterase Inhibitor (Human) for subcutaneous (under the skin) administration to prevent Hereditary Angioedema (HAE) attacks in adolescent and adult patients. The subcutaneous route of administration allows for easier at-home self-injection by the patient or caregiver, once proper training is received.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that on June 15, the U.S. Marshals Service seized food products held at Professional Warehouse and Distribution, Inc., in St. Paul, Minnesota. The food products seized are worth approximately $73,000 and include, among other things, barley flour, spices, pasta, dried beans, tea and cookies.

While the latest numbers from the 2016 National Youth Tobacco Survey are encouraging, it is critical that we work to ensure this downward trend continues over the long term across all tobacco products.

Every day in the U.S., more than 2,500 youth under the age of 18 smoke their first cigarette and more than 400 youth become daily cigarette smokers. It is also clear from these most recent numbers that youth are continuing to experiment with, or becoming regular users of, a wide range of other tobacco products.

Today, U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams for the Southern District of Florida entered a consent decree of permanent injunction between the United States and Stratus Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Miami, Florida, Sonar Products Inc. of Carlstadt, New Jersey and two of the companies’ officers, Alberto Hoyo and Juan Carlos Billoch.