Distribution of Blood Derivatives by Registered Blood Establishments That Qualify as Health Care Entities; Prescription Drug Marketing Act of 1987; Prescription Drug Amendments of 1992; Delay of Applicability Date

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is further delaying, until December 1, 2008, the applicability date of a certain requirement of a final rule published in the Federal Register of December 3, 1999 (64 FR 67720) (the final rule). The final rule implements the Prescription Drug Marketing Act of 1987 (PDMA), as modified by the Prescription Drug Amendments of 1992 (PDA), and the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 (the Modernization Act). The provisions of the final rule became effective on December 4, 2000, except for certain provisions whose effective or applicability dates were delayed in five subsequent Federal Register notices, until December 1, 2006. The provision with the delayed applicability date would prohibit wholesale distribution of blood derivatives by registered blood establishments that meet the definition of a "health care entity." In the Federal Register of February 1, 2006 (71 FR 5200), FDA published a proposed rule specific to the distribution of blood derivatives by registered blood establishments that qualify as health care entities (the proposed rule). The proposed rule would amend certain limited provisions of the final rule to allow certain registered blood establishments that qualify as health care entities to distribute blood derivatives. In response to the proposed rule, FDA received substantive comments. As explained in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document, further delaying the applicability of Sec. 203.3(q) (21 CFR 203.3(q)) to the wholesale distribution of blood derivatives by health care entities is necessary to give the agency additional time to address comments on the proposed rule, consider whether regulatory changes are appropriate, and, if so, to initiate such changes.