Concordance Between Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency Review and Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Decision Among New Drug Applications in Japan

New drug applications (NDAs) in Japan are reviewed by the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA). Those that pass the review are subsequently subject to deliberation by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Pharmaceutical Affairs and Food Sanitation Councils (MHLW-PAFSC), and the MHLW legislatively grants approval based on its positive opinions. However, little is known regarding the relationship between the PMDA review and the MHLW decision. We retrospectively assessed the MHLW decision of NDAs that passed the PMDA review at the initial MHLW-PAFSC deliberation from 2002 to 2022. The reasoning behind a non-supportive opinion from the MHLW-PAFSC and the sponsor's actions to overcome unresolved issues were also documented. A total of 2,117 of 2,153 (98.3%) NDAs that passed the PMDA review were approved at the initial MHLW-PAFSC deliberation with a positive opinion. The remaining 36 applications were not approved at the initial deliberation and subjected to continued deliberation because of a non-supportive opinion from the councils, although 29 were finally approved through revision of the application document (24 applications), re-analysis of the data (1 application), or additional clinical trials (4 applications). Seven applications have not been approved, of which one was refused, four were withdrawn, and two were unknown. The MHLW approves NDAs that passed the PMDA review at the initial deliberation at a high rate, suggesting that NDAs only suitable for approval passed the review and reached the MHLW-PAFSC deliberation. Only a few NDAs were not approved at the initial deliberation; however, most of them were finally approved.