The angst over the maladroit roll-out of the European Union’s Medical Device Regulation (MDR) has reached the European Parliament (EP), which met recently to address the issue. Stella Kyriakides, who oversees the MDR on behalf of the European Commission (EC) responded to stinging criticism from the EP that the EC’s health council will meet in December to address both the short-term and structural problems with the MDR, but had little detail to offer other than a promise to keep the EP abreast of these developments.
The problem with notified body (NB) capacity in the European Union is well known, but a recent survey of NBs suggests that more than 17,000 certificates for medical devices and active implanted devices issued under the legacy regulation are set to expire by the end of 2024. More troubling might be the fact that the number of standing applications dwarfs the number of completed applications by a ratio of more than four to one, a gap that continues to grow as calendar year 2022 unwinds.
The new EU Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) is not going down well with Swiss medical technology manufacturers. At a conference held on Oct. 19 in Bern, Switzerland on introducing the new EU MDR, the Swiss medical technology association, Swiss Medtech, which represents more than 700 firms, put out a harsh and definitive statement.
EU health ministers have warned that developers of medical devices face trouble ahead in meeting deadlines for implementing the two new key regulations for medical devices (MDR) and in vitro diagnostics (IVDR). These were planned to enter into force in May 2021 and May 2022 respectively. EU executives and stakeholders have now all accepted that delays in complying with the regulations could result in issues achieving certification for medical devices, threatening shortages in the market.
The casual observer may be inclined to think that the European Union’s Medical Device Regulation (MDR) is off to a rocky start, but those whose livelihoods are at stake have a more intimate view of the situation. An attendee at a Sept. 12 session at this year’s Regulatory Convergence lamented what she believes is a dismal outlook for EU patients and device makers in the coming year, a testimonial that drew cheers and applause from those in attendance.
Implementation of the new regulations for medical devices and in vitro diagnostics in the EU have presented a number of problems, including a serious crunch in the availability of notified bodies (NBs) to review premarket filings.
The EU’s Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) has advised the device industry that many manufacturers seem ill prepared for the transition to the Medical Device Regulation (MDR), which will be fully in force for all devices as of May 2024. MDCG said that that any leniency shown after that date will be granted only for devices that address an urgent public health need, potentially leaving many existing authorizations out in the cold.
The mutual recognition agreement between Switzerland and the EU for medical devices lapsed in 2021, a development that was expected to add a significant amount of drag on Swiss device exports to EU nations.
The U.S. FDA’s pre-certification (pre-cert) program for software as a medical device (SaMD) seemed to run out of steam before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, but the FDA was always presumed to need help from Congress to roll out a permanent version. A session at this year’s MedCon suggests that there is still life left in the pilot version of the SaMD pre-cert program, a critical development given that the legislation for the device user fee program offers the FDA no new statutory authority for a novel software regulatory framework.
The European Commission posted a draft legislative framework for regulation of artificial intelligence, a document that spans all potential uses of such algorithms rather than just medical ones.