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Opinion

The US Food and Drug Administration perspective on cancer biomarker development

Abstract

Despite the intense interest in biomarker development for cancer management, few biomarker assays for diagnostic uses have been submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). What challenges must researchers overcome to bring cancer-detection technologies to the market and, therefore, into clinical use?

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Figure 1: The critical path for medical product development.

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Acknowledgements

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as representing the opinion of the US Food and Drug Administration.

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Correspondence to Steven Gutman.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Related links

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DATABASES

National Cancer Institute

breast cancer

bladder cancer

cervical cancer

colon cancer

liver cancer

lung cancer

melanoma

oesophageal cancer

ovarian cancer

pancreatic cancer

prostate cancer

testicular cancer

FURTHER INFORMATION

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

The FDA website

Current information on the FDA's review products for in vitro diagnostic (laboratory tests) biomarkers for clinical use

Interagency Oncology Task Force (IOTF)

Current information on the FDA's review of genomic tests as part of drug discovery and development

Guidance document on voluntary pharmacogenomic data submissions (VGDS) for the use of pharmacogenomic data in new drug development

Information on best practices for the VGDS process

Information on the preliminary thinking of the FDA about the co-development of diagnostics and drugs

Special controls for the first FDA-cleared microarray

Special controls for the first FDA-cleared microarray reader

Draft guidance for industry and FDA staff on pharmacogenetics tests and genetic tests for heritable markers

Regulations citing quality system regulation requirements and explaining corrective and preventive action processes

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Gutman, S., Kessler, L. The US Food and Drug Administration perspective on cancer biomarker development. Nat Rev Cancer 6, 565–571 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc1911

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