Patent Baristas: FDA Outlines Critical Path Opportunities List:


The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released an initial list of priority research projects that could advance innovation in medical products. The announcement of the Critical Path Opportunities List signals the next major step in FDA's Critical Path Initiative aimed at modernizing medical product development, so new medical discoveries are brought to patients faster and at a lower cost.

Critical Path is the FDA's initiative to identify and prioritize the most pressing medical product development problems and the greatest opportunities for rapid improvement in public health benefits. Its primary purpose is to ensure that basic scientific discoveries translate more rapidly into new and better medical treatments by creating new tools to find answers about how the safety and effectiveness of new medical products can be demonstrated in faster timeframes with more certainty, at lower costs, and with better information.