FDA panel finds mifepristone safe and effective.

At a July 19 hearing, the Food and Drug Administration's Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs found mifepristone to be safe and effective in inducing abortions early in pregnancy and recommended that the drug be approved for marketing in the US. With a 6-0 vote with two abstentions, the eight-member panel found that mifepristone's benefits were greater than its risks; agreed, 7-0, with one abstention, that it is safe; voted 6-2 to accept data from a French study as sufficient to recommend use in this country; and decided unanimously to reconvene if results from US clinical trials differ significantly from those from France. While the FDA is not required to follow the panel's advice, it is highly uncommon for it to do otherwise. The advisory panel scheduled the hearing in response to an application filed this spring by the Population Council, the nonprofit organization that owns the US patent rights to the drug. The meeting began with a presentation by the Population Council on the results of an American mifepristone trial that involved more than 2000 women and a discussion of the data from studies and practical use in France. The second session brought public testimony from 33 speakers, the majority of whom spoke in favor of the drug's approval. A company plans to manufacture mifepristone once it is approved but refuses to reveal its identity out of concern that it will be a target for anti-choice protests and boycotts. The drug would be marketed by Advances in Health Technology, Inc., an enterprise designated by the Population Council as the exclusive US distributor of mifepristone--the abortifacient marketed as RU486 in France and used by nearly 200,000 women in Europe and elsewhere.