It was in with the new and out with the old Jan. 3 as the gavel came down on the first session of the 119th U.S. Congress. Although Republicans will control both the House and Senate for the next two years, their narrow majority could prove a challenge to passing some of President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda, including his proposal to cut the corporate tax rate to 15% for companies that manufacture their products in the U.S.

Regulatory overhauls are never a simple affair, but the med tech industry ran into an amorphous, ennui-inducing mess in dealing with the EU Medical Device Regulation almost immediately. Even though the underlying legislation passed in 2017, the MDR impasse continued to impede innovation on the continent – a problem that might be only partly resolved in 2025.

The Asia Pacific med-tech market is projected to reach $140 billion in 2025 in value, growing roughly 5% per year, driven largely by a rising demand for advanced and personalized medical technologies, including telemedicine and precision medicine.

The device industry is extraordinarily dependent on administrative activity where Medicare coverage is concerned, and this was exceptionally evident in 2024 when software and digital health coverage policies remained bogged down.

Driven by declining competitiveness, the new European Commission will start 2025 by getting to work on an EU-wide industrial strategy, proposing a number of policies with direct and indirect implications for the biopharmaceutical sector.

Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd.’s trophoblast cell surface antigen 2 (Trop2)-directed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), datopotamab deruxtecan (dato-dxd), has been approved in Japan for treating adults with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative unresectable or recurrent breast cancer after prior chemotherapy.

2024 was a critical year for the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health and included a smooth transition in leadership, but it was not without controversy. The agency triggered not one but two lawsuits over the final rule for regulation of lab-developed tests, a problem that promises to distract the agency throughout 2025 and potentially beyond.

The U.S. FDA’s draft guidance for reporting of deviations from clinical study protocols lends some insight as to the definition of a deviation, but the agency highlights some concerns about related compliance activities.