The U.S. FDA granted 510(k) clearance to Lantheus Holdings Inc.'s artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced automated bone scan index (aBSI) product for prostate cancer on GE Healthcare's Xeleris platform. ABSI improves quantification and management of disease progression in advanced prostate cancer patients.

TORONTO – A Canadian plant-based, cellulose scaffold implant for regenerating healthy spinal cord tissue has received U.S. FDA breakthrough device designation. The designation will enhance the process by which Ottawa-based Spiderwort Inc. interacts with the FDA during regulatory review of the Cellubridge implant, said Spiderwort CSO and cofounder Andrew Pelling, speeding its way to clinical trials.

Regulation of the digital health space is in some respects fundamentally different from traditional hardware medical devices, a fact that was highlighted during a Nov. 12 webinar hosted by the U.S. FDA. Nonetheless, several participants in the webinar made the point that the twin problems of coverage and reimbursement are critical issues for digital health as well, a problem that some see as requiring more collaboration between the FDA and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Some PMA filings manage to scrape by at U.S. FDA advisory hearings, but the application for the Visability device by Refocus Group Inc. was not one of those. The panel voted 15-1 that the benefits of the device for presbyopia did not outweigh the risks, leaving the sponsor with a fundamental question about the viability of a technology that has been under development for more than 20 years.

The U.S. FDA final guidance for microneedling devices is a product-specific guidance, but it raises questions about the agency’s perspective on how a manufacturer’s intended use is inferred. Despite concerns voiced by industry, the microneedling devices final guidance retains a feature of the draft that allows the agency to infer intended use from the manufacturer’s “expressions,” a provision that raises yet again the long-standing commercial speech problem.