[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 175 (Tuesday, September 10, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 47520-47521]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-19496]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Food and Drug Administration

[Docket No. FDA-2018-E-0280]


Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent 
Extension; AEGEA VAPOR SYSTEM

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) has 
determined the regulatory review period for AEGEA VAPOR SYSTEM and is 
publishing this notice of that determination as required by law. FDA 
has made the determination because of the submission of an application 
to the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), 
Department of Commerce, for the extension of a patent which claims that 
medical device.

DATES: Anyone with knowledge that any of the dates as published (see 
the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section) are incorrect may submit either 
electronic or written comments and ask for a redetermination by 
November 12, 2019. Furthermore, any interested person may petition FDA 
for a determination regarding whether the applicant for extension acted 
with due diligence during the regulatory review period by March 9, 
2020. See ``Petitions'' in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for 
more information.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments as follows. Please note that late, 
untimely filed comments will not be considered. Electronic comments 
must be submitted on or before November 12, 2019. The https://www.regulations.gov electronic filing system will accept comments until 
11:59 p.m. Eastern Time at the end of November 12, 2019. Comments 
received by mail/hand delivery/courier (for written/paper submissions) 
will be considered timely if they are postmarked or the delivery 
service acceptance receipt is on or before that date.

Electronic Submissions

    Submit electronic comments in the following way:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Comments submitted 
electronically, including attachments, to https://www.regulations.gov 
will be posted to the docket unchanged. Because your comment will be 
made public, you are solely responsible for ensuring that your comment 
does not include any confidential information that you or a third party 
may not wish to be posted, such as medical information, your or anyone 
else's Social Security number, or confidential business information, 
such as a manufacturing process. Please note that if you include your 
name, contact information, or other information that identifies you in 
the body of your comments, that information will be posted on https://www.regulations.gov.
     If you want to submit a comment with confidential 
information that you do not wish to be made available to the public, 
submit the comment as a written/paper submission and in the manner 
detailed (see ``Written/Paper Submissions'' and ``Instructions'').

Written/Paper Submissions

    Submit written/paper submissions as follows:
     Mail/Hand Delivery/Courier (for written/paper 
submissions): Dockets Management Staff (HFA-305), Food and Drug 
Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.
     For written/paper comments submitted to the Dockets 
Management Staff, FDA will post your comment, as well as any 
attachments, except for information submitted, marked and identified, 
as confidential, if submitted as detailed in ``Instructions.''
    Instructions: All submissions received must include the Docket No. 
FDA-2018-E-0280 for ``Determination of Regulatory Review Period for 
Purposes of Patent Extension; AEGEA VAPOR SYSTEM.'' Received comments, 
those filed in a timely manner (see ADDRESSES), will be placed in the 
docket and, except for those submitted as ``Confidential Submissions,'' 
publicly viewable at https://www.regulations.gov or at the Dockets 
Management Staff between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
     Confidential Submissions--To submit a comment with 
confidential information that you do not wish to be made publicly 
available, submit your comments only as a written/paper submission. You 
should submit two copies total. One copy will include the information 
you claim to be confidential with a heading or cover note that states 
``THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION.'' The Agency will 
review this copy, including the claimed confidential information, in 
its consideration of comments. The second copy, which will have the 
claimed confidential information redacted/blacked out, will be 
available for public viewing and posted on https://www.regulations.gov. 
Submit both copies to the Dockets Management Staff. If you do not wish 
your name and contact information to be made publicly available, you 
can provide this information on the cover sheet and not in the body of 
your comments and you must identify this information as 
``confidential.'' Any information marked as ``confidential'' will not 
be disclosed except in accordance with 21 CFR 10.20 and other 
applicable disclosure law. For more information about FDA's posting of 
comments to public dockets, see 80

[[Page 47521]]

FR 56469, September 18, 2015, or access the information at: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-09-18/pdf/2015-23389.pdf.
    Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or 
the electronic and written/paper comments received, go to https://www.regulations.gov and insert the docket number, found in brackets in 
the heading of this document, into the ``Search'' box and follow the 
prompts and/or go to the Dockets Management Staff, 5630 Fishers Lane, 
Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Beverly Friedman, Office of Regulatory 
Policy, Food and Drug Administration, 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Bldg. 
51, Rm. 6250, Silver Spring, MD 20993, 301-796-3600.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 
(Pub. L. 98-417) and the Generic Animal Drug and Patent Term 
Restoration Act (Pub. L. 100-670) generally provide that a patent may 
be extended for a period of up to 5 years so long as the patented item 
(human drug product, animal drug product, medical device, food 
additive, or color additive) was subject to regulatory review by FDA 
before the item was marketed. Under these acts, a product's regulatory 
review period forms the basis for determining the amount of extension 
an applicant may receive.
    A regulatory review period consists of two periods of time: A 
testing phase and an approval phase. For medical devices, the testing 
phase begins with a clinical investigation of the device and runs until 
the approval phase begins. The approval phase starts with the initial 
submission of an application to market the device and continues until 
permission to market the device is granted. Although only a portion of 
a regulatory review period may count toward the actual amount of 
extension that the Director of USPTO may award (half the testing phase 
must be subtracted as well as any time that may have occurred before 
the patent was issued), FDA's determination of the length of a 
regulatory review period for a medical device will include all of the 
testing phase and approval phase as specified in 35 U.S.C. 
156(g)(3)(B).
    FDA has approved for marketing the medical device AEGEA VAPOR 
SYSTEM. AEGEA VAPOR SYSTEM is indicated for ablation of the endometrial 
lining of the uterus in premenopausal women with menorrhagia due to 
benign causes in whom childbearing is complete. Subsequent to this 
approval, the USPTO received a patent term restoration application for 
AEGEA VAPOR SYSTEM (U.S. Patent No. 8,574,226) from Tsunami MedTech, 
LLC, and the USPTO requested FDA's assistance in determining this 
patent's eligibility for patent term restoration. In a letter dated 
April 4, 2018, FDA advised the USPTO that this medical device had 
undergone a regulatory review period and that the approval of AEGEA 
VAPOR SYSTEM represented the first permitted commercial marketing or 
use of the product. Thereafter, the USPTO requested that FDA determine 
the product's regulatory review period.

II. Determination of Regulatory Review Period

    FDA has determined that the applicable regulatory review period for 
AEGEA VAPOR SYSTEM is 1,381 days. Of this time, 1,148 days occurred 
during the testing phase of the regulatory review period, while 233 
days occurred during the approval phase. These periods of time were 
derived from the following dates:
    1. The date an exemption for this device, under section 520(g) of 
the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) (21 U.S.C. 
360j(g)), became effective: September 4, 2013. FDA has verified the 
applicant's claim that the date the investigational device exemption 
(IDE) for human tests to begin, as required under section 520(g) of the 
FD&C Act, became effective September 4, 2013.
    2. The date an application was initially submitted with respect to 
the device under section 515 of the FD&C Act (21 U.S.C. 360e): October 
25, 2016. The applicant claims December 17, 2015, as the date the 
premarket approval application (PMA) for AEGEA VAPOR SYSTEM (PMA 
P160047) was initially submitted. However, FDA records indicate that 
PMA P160047 was submitted as a complete application on October 25, 
2016.
    3. The date the application was approved: June 14, 2017. FDA has 
verified the applicant's claim that PMA P160047 was approved on June 
14, 2017.
    This determination of the regulatory review period establishes the 
maximum potential length of a patent extension. However, the USPTO 
applies several statutory limitations in its calculations of the actual 
period for patent extension. In its application for patent extension, 
this applicant seeks 931 days of patent term extension.

III. Petitions

    Anyone with knowledge that any of the dates as published are 
incorrect may submit either electronic or written comments and, under 
21 CFR 60.24, ask for a redetermination (see DATES). Furthermore, as 
specified in Sec.  60.30 (21 CFR 60.30), any interested person may 
petition FDA for a determination regarding whether the applicant for 
extension acted with due diligence during the regulatory review period. 
To meet its burden, the petition must comply with all the requirements 
of Sec.  60.30, including but not limited to: Must be timely (see 
DATES), must be filed in accordance with Sec.  10.20, must contain 
sufficient facts to merit an FDA investigation, and must certify that a 
true and complete copy of the petition has been served upon the patent 
applicant. (See H. Rept. 857, part 1, 98th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 41-42, 
1984.) Petitions should be in the format specified in 21 CFR 10.30.
    Submit petitions electronically to https://www.regulations.gov at 
Docket No. FDA-2013-S-0610. Submit written petitions (two copies are 
required) to the Dockets Management Staff (HFA-305), Food and Drug 
Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.

    Dated: September 4, 2019.
Lowell J. Schiller,
Principal Associate Commissioner for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2019-19496 Filed 9-9-19; 8:45 am]
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