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Clinical Utility of Treating Patients with Compounded “Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy”

Completed

In recent years, an increasing number of health care providers and patients have turned to compounded drugs for the treatment of hormone-related health concerns. These products are often marketed as “bioidentical” or “natural” and are commonly referred to as compounded “Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy” (cBHRT). These compounded preparations are often marketed as safer alternatives to the FDA-approved hormone products; however, the FDA does not review or approve compounded preparations for safety, quality, or effectiveness. As a result, FDA asked the National Academies to convene a consensus study to evaluate the safety, effectiveness, use, and overall clinical utility of cBHRT.

Description

An ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies) will conduct a study to assess the clinical utility of treating patients with compounded "bioidentical hormone replacement therapy" (BHRT) drug products.
The committee will:

  • Review the current and historic use of compounded BHRT drug products to treat patients, including information about the medical condition(s) that these compounded drug products have been used to treat;
  • Describe the physical and chemical characteristics of compounded BHRT drug products (e.g., active ingredient, inactive ingredient(s), dosage forms, routes of administration, strengths);
  • Review and assess the available evidence (or lack of evidence) regarding the safety and effectiveness of compounded BHRT drug products;
  • Summarize findings and make recommendations based on the available evidence with respect to
  1. the clinical utility of compounded BHRT drug products;
  2. whether the available evidence of safety and effectiveness supports use of compounded BHRT drug products to treat patients; and
  3. the patient populations that might need a compounded BHRT drug product in lieu of an FDA-approved drug product.

*NOTE: The statement of task was revised on November 15, 2018.

Collaborators

Committee

Chair

Vice Chair

Member

Member

Member

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Committee Membership Roster Comments

Please note that there has been a change in the committee membership with the resignation of Committee Chair Dr. Jerome Strauss, III effective 03/22/2019, and appointment of Dr. Donald R. Mattison as Chair on 03/28/2019 and Dr. Ruth M. Parker as Vice-Chair on 03/28/2019.

Sponsors

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Staff

Leigh Miles Jackson

Lead

LMJackson@nas.edu

Andrew March

AMarch@nas.edu

Claire Giammaria

CGiammaria@nas.edu

Elizabeth Townsend

ETownsend@nas.edu

Justin Jones

JJones@nas.edu

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