Guangdong Pulse Medical Technology Co. Ltd. received marketing approval from China’s NMPA for its left atrial appendage (LAA) closure product called the Leftear occluder system.
The U.S. Congress has reauthorized several user fee programs at the FDA, and the agency has published the user fee levels for several product types, with most of those fees increasing significantly, an example of which is the increase for new drug applications (NDAs) requiring clinical data from $3.12 million to $3.24 million. Fees for medical device premarket approval (PMA) filings will jump from $375,000 to $442,000, including some hefty adjustments for persistent inflation, a problem that may plague the user fee schedules for fiscal 2024 as well.
The U.S. FDA’s device center recently advised companies that make tests for the COVID-19 pandemic that the emergency use authorization program for tests is winding down, albeit with a few exceptions.
Rapid point-of-care (POC) diagnostics company Lumos Diagnostics Holdings Pty. Ltd. has had its hopes of entering the U.S. market dashed yet again following a second decision from the FDA that Febridx has not demonstrated substantial equivalence to the predicate device identified in its 510(k) application.
Anvisa, Brazil´s health care surveillance agency, issued new regulations for the registration of medical devices as it works to harmonize its own rules with international standards and integrate its medtech industry with those of other countries in the region.
The Biden administration has released a blueprint for an artificial intelligence bill of rights, which is accompanied by an acknowledgement that these algorithms can be crucial in guiding treatment of cancer patients.
The U.S. FDA’s finalized guidance for clinical decision support (CDS) software was not an entirely isolated policy change inasmuch as there were several other guidances that were edited and reissued two days after the CDS final was published. One of these is the guidance for device software functions and mobile medical apps, which now encodes a transparency requirement as seen in the CDS guidance, a change that may represent a hazard for the unwary medical software developer.
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) has given Intuitive Surgical Inc. the green light for its Da Vinci SP surgical system. The surgical system has been cleared for use in general surgeries, thoracic surgeries (excluding cardiac procedures and intercostal approaches), urologic surgeries, gynecological surgeries, and trans-oral head and neck surgeries.
The most conspicuous part of the data problem for artificial intelligence (AI) medical software is the bias problem, but the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says there are policy solutions despite the data ownership/monetization problem.
Fujifilm Healthcare Europe received the European CE mark for its next-generation therapeutic linear array ultrasound endoscope, the EG-740UT, designed for complex diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic ultrasound procedures.