The Innovative Feed Enhancement and Economic Development Act of 2023, better known as the Innovative FEED Act, was developed to create options for producers to buy and use products that may not exist on the market today. These feed ingredients can help producers meet whatever goals they may have, from climate goals and soil health to feed efficiency and animal health.
The current policy was put in place in 1998 and deemed any product wanting to make a production claim would be regulated as an animal drug.
While there have been discrepancies with the policy since it was first installed, it wasn’t until recently that it was brought back up. In 2020, the request was made to the FDA to modernize their regulatory thinking and give a pathway that could regulate these products that truly work within the digestive tract of the animal as feed ingredients.
The language for this bill was put with the Animal Drug User Fee Reauthorization bill (AUDFA), passed by the Senate in the fall of 2023; however, the amendment was stripped to produce a “clean” ADUFA, which passed on the continuing resolution to keep the government temporarily funded.
The hope was for it to be included in another “must-pass” piece of legislation before the end of the year; however, that did not happen.
The FDA has since released a letter to the industry encouraging “firms with these novel products for animals to contact the agency early in the product development process,” according to a statement from the FDA released in February.
The statement continues, “These efforts align with FDA’s Animal and Veterinary Innovation Agenda, released on Sept. 15, 2023, which outlines FDA current and intended actions to foster novel animal and veterinary product development and implement smart, risk-based approaches to regulating these modern products.”
