The rescission order directing the U.S. FDA to abandon regulation of lab-developed tests is scarcely three weeks in the past, but two senior managers at the FDA are pushing back in an editorial appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine. The FDA’s Jeff Shuren and Tim Stenzel wrote that there is “a need for a common legislative framework” to ensure clinical tests are accurate and reliable, which implicitly concedes that the statute does not authorize the agency to regulate lab-developed tests.

The second day of the U.S. FDA’s orthopedic devices advisory panel included a proposal to down-classify semi-constrained toe joint prostheses as class II devices, but the panel was adamant that such devices be slotted in class III, with one panelist referring to the literature for these devices as “garbage.”

Minnetronix Medical Inc. has won the U.S. FDA’s nod for its Mindseye Expandable Port for neurosurgical procedures. The company touts the device as the first minimally invasive, retractable deep brain access system for use in the treatment of stroke, cancer and other conditions.

Medtronic plc is celebrating its latest win following the U.S. FDA’s approval of an early feasibility study (EFS) of the Intrepid transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement system in patients with severe, symptomatic tricuspid regurgitation. The action comes after the agency granted breakthrough device designation for the system.

The agenda for the U.S. FDA’s Sept. 8-9 advisory hearing includes a proposed down-classification of bone growth stimulator (BGS) devices to class II, but while the proposal met some resistance from an industry group, the panel sided with the FDA and declared BGS units ready for prime time as 510(k) devices.

LONDON – Gyroscope Therapeutics Ltd. is poised to move the field of ocular gene therapy on from the treatment of inherited rare diseases to address more common eye conditions, after receiving FDA 510(k) clearance for its Orbit SDS subretinal delivery device.

Detectachem Inc. has scored an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. FDA to market a new molecular RNA test kit for SARS-CoV-2 that provides color-coded results in about 30 minutes.

Pq Bypass Inc. received breakthrough device designation from the FDA for its Detour system, the first to permit fully percutaneous femoropopliteal bypass to treat extremely long, complex blockages in the superficial femoral artery (SFA). “This designation is a major milestone for Pq Bypass, and we expect this technology to change the paradigm for complex SFA treatment in the way EVAR and TAVR changed the paradigm for aortic repair,” said Rich Ferrari, chairman and CEO of Pq Bypass.

While the emergency use authorization (EUA) the FDA granted Aug. 23 for convalescent plasma remains a political talking point, the agency moved ahead Sept. 2, issuing an updated, immediately effective guidance on the use of convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19 patients in ongoing clinical trials, on an expanded access basis or under the EUA.

The need for self-administered surveillance testing finally has a few candidates, thanks to labs and test developers across the globe, and the U.S. FDA is keen on exploiting the opening. Tim Stenzel, director of the FDA’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, said on the agency’s Sept. 2 testing town hall that the agency is interested in a test intended to be self-administered multiple times compared to a test validated under a single test approach, a flexibility that may prove critical in advancing the U.S. approach to testing for the COVID-19 pandemic.