[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 56 (Thursday, March 23, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17581-17583]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-05948]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Food and Drug Administration

[Docket No. FDA-2019-E-3014]


Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent 
Extension; RECELL AUTOLOGOUS CELL HARVESTING DEVICE

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) has 
determined the regulatory review period for RECELL AUTOLOGOUS CELL 
HARVESTING DEVICE 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 human biological device.

DATES: Anyone with knowledge that any of the dates as published (see 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION) are incorrect may submit either electronic 
or written comments and ask for a redetermination by May 22, 2023. 
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 September 19, 2023. 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. The https://www.regulations.gov electronic filing system will accept comments until 
11:59 p.m. Eastern Time at the end of May 22, 2023. Comments received 
by mail/hand delivery/courier (for written/paper submissions) will be 
considered timely if they are received 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-2019-E-3014 for ``Determination of Regulatory Review Period for 
Purposes of Patent Extension; RECELL AUTOLOGOUS CELL HARVESTING 
DEVICE.'' 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, 240-402-7500.
     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

[[Page 17582]]

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 Sec.  10.20 (21 CFR 10.20) and 
other applicable disclosure law. For more information about FDA's 
posting of comments to public dockets, see 80 FR 56469, September 18, 
2015, or access the information at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/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, 240-402-7500.

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 or biologic 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 human biological products 
(including biologic device products), the testing phase begins when the 
exemption to permit the clinical investigations of the biologic device 
becomes effective and runs until the approval phase begins. The 
approval phase starts with the initial submission of an application to 
market the human biologic device and continues until FDA grants 
permission to market the biologic device. Although only a portion of a 
regulatory review period may count toward the actual amount of 
extension that the Director of USPTO may award (for example, 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 human biologic device will 
include all of the testing phase and approval phase as specified in 35 
U.S.C. 156(g)(1)(B).
    FDA has approved for marketing the human biologic device RECELL 
AUTOLOGOUS CELL HARVESTING DEVICE. RECELL AUTOLOGOUS CELL HARVESTING 
DEVICE is indicated for the treatment of acute thermal burn wounds in 
patients 18 years of age and older. The RECELL AUTOLOGOUS CELL 
HARVESTING DEVICE is used by an appropriately-licensed healthcare 
professional at the patient's point-of-care to prepare autologous 
Regenerative Epidermal Suspension (RESTM) for direct 
application to acute partial-thickness thermal burn wounds or 
application in combination with meshed autografting for acute full-
thickness thermal burns. Subsequent to this approval, the USPTO 
received a patent term restoration application for RECELL AUTOLOGOUS 
CELL HARVESTING DEVICE (U.S. Patent No. 9,029,140) from Avita Medical 
Ltd., and the USPTO requested FDA's assistance in determining this 
patent's eligibility for patent term restoration. In a letter dated 
November 29, 2019, FDA advised the USPTO that this human biological 
device had undergone a regulatory review period and that the approval 
of RECELL AUTOLOGOUS CELL HARVESTING DEVICE 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 
RECELL AUTOLOGOUS CELL HARVESTING DEVICE is 4,455 days. Of this time, 
4,097 days occurred during the testing phase of the regulatory review 
period, while 358 days occurred during the approval phase. These 
periods of time were derived from the following dates:
    1. The date an exemption under section 520(g) of the Federal Food, 
Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) (21 U.S.C. 360j(g)) involving this 
device became effective: July 12, 2006. The applicant claims the 
biologic investigational device exemption (BB-IDE) required under 
section 520(g) of the FD&C Act for human tests to begin became 
effective on December 4, 2009. However, FDA records indicate that the 
BB-IDE effective date was July 12, 2006, when the BB-IDE was approved 
after initial FDA receipt.
    2. The date the application was initially submitted with respect to 
the biologic device under section 515 of the FD&C Act (21 U.S.C. 360e): 
September 28, 2017. FDA has verified the applicant's claim that the 
biologic device marketing application (BP) for RECELL AUTOLOGOUS CELL 
HARVESTING DEVICE (BP170122) was initially submitted on September 28, 
2017.
    3. The date the application was approved: September 20, 2018. FDA 
has verified the applicant's claim that BP170122 was approved on 
September 20, 2018.
    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 793 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

[[Page 17583]]

Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.

    Dated: March 20, 2023.
Lauren K. Roth,
Associate Commissioner for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2023-05948 Filed 3-22-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4164-01-P