
[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 113 (Wednesday, June 14, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 27266-27268]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-12322]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Food and Drug Administration

[Docket Nos. FDA-2015-E-0635; FDA-2015-E-0634; FDA-2015-E-0629]


Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent 
Extension; NEUROPACE RNS SYSTEM

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined the 
regulatory review period for NEUROPACE RNS SYSTEM and is publishing 
this notice of that determination as required by law. FDA has made the 
determination because of the submission of applications 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 August 
14, 2017. 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 December 11, 2017. 
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

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considered. Electronic comments must be submitted on or before August 
14, 2017. The https://www.regulations.gov electronic filing system will 
accept comments until midnight Eastern Time at the end of August 14, 
2017. 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): Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug 
Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.
     For written/paper comments submitted to the Division of 
Dockets Management, 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 Nos. 
FDA-2015-E-0635, FDA-2015-E-0634, and FDA-2015-E-0629 for 
``Determination of Regulatory Review Period for Purposes of Patent 
Extension; NEUROPACE RNS SYSTEM.'' Received comments, those filed in a 
timely manner (see ADDRESSES), will be placed in the dockets and, 
except for those submitted as ``Confidential Submissions,'' publicly 
viewable at https://www.regulations.gov or at the Division of Dockets 
Management 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 Division of Dockets Management. 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 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 Division of Dockets Management, 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 NEUROPACE RNS 
SYSTEM. NEUROPACE RNS SYSTEM is indicated as an adjunctive therapy in 
reducing the frequency of seizures in individuals 18 years of age or 
older with partial onset seizures who have undergone diagnostic testing 
that localized no more than 2 epileptogenic foci, are refractory to two 
or more antiepileptic medications, and currently have frequent and 
disabling seizures (motor partial seizures, complex partial seizures, 
and/or secondarily generalized seizures). Subsequent to this approval, 
the USPTO received patent term restoration applications for NEUROPACE 
RNS SYSTEM (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,016,449; 6,360,122; and 6,810,285) from 
NeuroPace, Inc., and the USPTO requested FDA's assistance in 
determining the patents' eligibility for patent term restoration. In a 
letter dated November 2, 2015, FDA advised the USPTO that this medical 
device had undergone a regulatory review period and that the approval 
of NEUROPACE RNS 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.

[[Page 27268]]

II. Determination of Regulatory Review Period

    FDA has determined that the applicable regulatory review period for 
NEUROPACE RNS SYSTEM is 3,796 days. Of this time, 2,694 days occurred 
during the testing phase of the regulatory review period, while 1102 
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 (the FD&C Act) (21 U.S.C. 360j(g)) involving 
this device became effective: June 26, 2003. FDA has verified the 
applicant's claim that the date the investigational device exemption 
(IDE) required under section 520(g) of the FD&C Act for human tests to 
begin became effective was June 26, 2003.
    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): November 
9, 2010. FDA has verified the applicant's claim that the premarket 
approval application (PMA) for NEUROPACE RNS SYSTEM (PMA P100026) was 
initially submitted November 9, 2010.
    3. The date the application was approved: November 14, 2013. FDA 
has verified the applicant's claim that PMA P100026 was approved on 
November 14, 2013.
    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 applications for patent extension, 
the applicant seeks 5 years 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 ask for 
a redetermination (see DATES). 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. 
To meet its burden, the petition must be timely (see DATES and 
ADDRESSES) and contain sufficient facts to merit an FDA investigation. 
(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 Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and 
Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.

    Dated: June 9, 2017.
Anna K. Abram,
Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Planning, Legislation, and Analysis.
[FR Doc. 2017-12322 Filed 6-13-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4164-01-P


