Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc. has received a green light from the U.S. FDA to market its Eksonr robotic exoskeleton for use with patients with acquired brain injury (ABI). The company said it is the first exoskeleton product to receive the agency's nod for rehabilitation use with ABI, allowing a broader patient population to access the device. This is good news for Richmond, Calif.-based Ekso, which, like many other device companies, saw its earnings off during the first quarter.

LONDON – Sirakoss Ltd. has received FDA 510(k) clearance for its nanoparticle synthetic bone graft substitute, after showing the ready-to-use putty is equivalent to the CE-approved dry formulation. Rather than granules that are mixed with a patient’s blood before administration, the inorganic calcium phosphate-based Osteo³ Zp putty consists of the granules suspended in a fully synthetic resorbable carrier.

The number of tests of various types for the SARS-CoV-2 virus are still growing, but the emergency use authorization (EUA) program is not the only option for developers. Timothy Stenzel, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiology, said on the agency’s May 27 town hall that the agency would like to see test developers file for a 510(k) for their tests when the data are sufficient to support an application, adding that any such clearances will not affect the U.S. FDA’s interest in keeping plenty of similar tests on the market via the EUA mechanism.

PERTH, Australia – Perth-based regenerative medicine company Orthocell Ltd. has submitted a 510(k) application to the U.S. FDA for its Celgro collagen medical device for dental guided bone and soft tissue regeneration applications. The submission follows positive results from an FDA-guided bone regeneration study, which is a key component toward the goal of gaining U.S. marketing approval.

With the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelming hospitals and treatment centers, San Jose, Calif.-based Outset Medical Inc. scored a big win with U.S. FDA clearance of its Tablo hemodialysis system for home dialysis use. The company will begin rolling the system out for home patients in the coming months, balancing that program with demand for onsite devices to support an upswell in COVID-driven dialysis treatments.

Charleston, S.C.-based startup ABM Respiratory Care has received U.S. FDA clearance for its first product, an airway clearance system known as Biwaze Cough. The portable device helps to remove secretions for people who are unable to cough or clear away secretions effectively on their own due to injury or disease.

Erlangen, Germany-based Siemens Healthineers AG has secured U.S. FDA clearance for its Rapidpoint 500e blood gas analyzer. Available in CE mark countries since August 2019, the device is used to monitor respiratory distress in critically ill patients, such as those in acute care due to COVID-19.

Pear Therapeutics Inc. obtained FDA approval for Somryst, the first prescription digital therapeutic for chronic insomnia. The app provides structured cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) with clinical dashboards for physicians. While CBT is the recommended first-line therapy for insomnia, the U.S. has only 500 therapists certified to provide CBT for insomnia (CBTi) for the estimated 30 million Americans who suffer from chronic difficulty going to and staying asleep.

LONDON – Behold.ai Ltd. has secured U.S. FDA 510(k) approval for use of its Red Dot image recognition algorithm in the automatic diagnosis of life-threatening pneumothorax (collapsed lung). The product completes the analysis immediately, sending an alert to the radiologist as soon as an X-ray is taken. “It does in 30 seconds what would normally take up to 30 minutes,” said Simon Rasalingham, CEO of London-based Behold.ai.

Medical devices are known to be iterative, but so are FDA guidances, and the 2018 draft guidance for third-party review of 510(k) applications was the second such document in two years. The 2020 final guidance made another adjustment or two based on feedback from industry, including a specific note that the intent of the guidance is to eliminate any need for routine FDA re-review of 510(k)s reviewed by third parties.