In what U.S. FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn billed as “a major milestone” in testing for the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA has granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Ellume Ltd., of East Brisbane, Australia, for the company’s COVID-19 home test. The rapid lateral-flow test for antigen detection can be obtained without prescription and will return results to the at-home user in 20 minutes, according to the FDA’s Dec. 15 statement.
Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Abbott, Anitoa, Binx Health, Ellume, Exero Medical, Genetesis, Horiba, Roche, Seaspine, Switch Health.
LONDON – The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Agency (MHRA) has given approval for the first-in-human study of Codagenix Inc.’s COVI-VAC, a live, attenuated whole virus COVID-19 vaccine, which is engineered to be structurally identical to wild-type SARS-CoV-2, but is much slower to replicate.
Med-tech happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Activepure Technologies, Aditx Therapeutics, American Bio Medica, Ashvattha Therapeutics, Babylon Health, Builtspace, Diabeloop, Efemoral Medical, Eurofins Technologies, GE Healthcare, Hummingbird Bioscience, Insightec, Lifescan, Luminultra, Mymedbot, Novacyt, Novocure, Oncimmune, Pacific Biosciences, Roche, SonALAsense, Tempus Labs, Todos Medical, Variscite, Welldoc.
Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, again criticized the U.S. FDA for taking a conventional regulatory approach to rapid antigen tests for the pandemic. However, not everyone at the FDA’s parent department deserves brickbats. Mina said Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir deserves a lot of credit for assisting in the effort to stand up pilot studies for rapid antigen tests that could be used to restore the U.S. economy even in the absence of a fully rolled-out vaccination campaign.
Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Applied Biocode.
The latest global regulatory news, changes and updates affecting medical devices and technologies, including: FDA delays comment period for electromagnetic compatibility draft; CMS, ONC post info sharing, prior authorization rule; Van Hollen debuts diagnostic accuracy bill; CDC updates POC testing guidelines; GAO: Specimen biopsy handling errors relatively low.
