The U.S. FDA’s attempts to harmonize with other nations on quality management received a dose of good news recently when the International Organization for Standards decided to stand pat on ISO 13485, which also leaves the FDA’s Quality Management System Regulation intact.
Hiiti Sillo, director of the WHO’s office for regulation and safety, told an audience at this year’s IMDRF meeting in Seattle that WHO is putting the finishing touches on a streamlined product application dossier process, one of several work products that should be ready for publication sometime in 2025.
The U.S. FDA dropped the final rule for the Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR), the long-awaited blending of the agency’s own Quality System Regulation (QSR) and ISO 13485.
The U.S. FDA is still sorting through the feedback for its proposal to modestly align the Quality System Regulation with ISO 13485, but the agency has posted a draft four-year plan for regulatory harmonization that is substantially broader in scope than just quality management system considerations. While this proposal addresses a significant need for device makers working in multiple markets, the objectives include an assessment of at least nine non-FDA harmonization proposals by the end of fiscal year 2025, a clear indicator that harmonization will continue to be every bit the slog it has proven to be in recent years.
Nearly 13 years after Congress created a biosimilars path to bring competition to the U.S. biologics market, new rules of the road are coming into play, via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), that could change the course for biosimilars in the long haul – if the IRA’s prescription drug price negotiation mandate withstands numerous constitutional challenges.
The U.S. FDA recently released its guidance agenda for fiscal 2023, a plan that de-emphasizes the oft-promised draft guidance for change control for artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, which is listed as a B priority instead of an A draft guidance priority. At this year’s Medtech Conference here in Boston, the FDA’s Melissa Torres disavowed the notion that any national regulatory authority is delaying another authority’s policy on software change control, but she acknowledged that these conversations about regulatory harmonization typically predate formal policy development.
As biopharma and med-tech companies grapple with restrictive data privacy laws in the EU and China while trying to meet the demand for greater diversity reflective of the U.S. population, there’s been more of an interest in conducting clinical trials in the U.S., Stacy Amin, a partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP, told BioWorld.
As biopharma and med-tech companies grapple with restrictive data privacy laws in the EU and China while trying to meet the demand for greater diversity reflective of the U.S. population, there’s been more of an interest in conducting clinical trials in the U.S., Stacy Amin, a partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP, told BioWorld.
In an era of ever-increasing change in regulation of medical devices, the 2021 draft regulatory proposal by the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) might have seemed like an invitation to regulatory balkanization. However, MHRA said the responses to the draft proposal indicated widespread support for “international collaboration with like-minded regulators,” thus reassuring industry that their developmental devices won’t face an entirely new set of barriers to access to a market of more than 67 million.
Regulatory harmonization of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is high on the checklist for companies that want to develop these products, but legislatures and regulatory agencies across the globe seem less interested. Koen Cobbaert, senior manager for quality standards and regulation with Royal Philips NV, told BioWorld that there is a race on to be the first market with a full-fledged set of regulations, a fact of life that does little to advance the cause of harmonization.
