The U.S. FDA’s priorities for testing for the SARS-CoV-2 virus have shifted as circumstances have changed, and the agency is putting more emphasis into testing of pooled samples. Toby Lowe, the associate director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health (OIR), said on the July 8 diagnostic town hall that the agency wants to encourage test developers to work on their existing EUAs for pooled sampling.
Two subcommittees of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee have moved their respective appropriations proposals for the FDA and the NIH, restarting a process that has worked smoothly over the past couple of years. Still, Republicans in both committees objected to the use of emergency funding mechanisms in lieu of more routine appropriations.
The U.S. FDA held a July 7 webinar to go over a recent guidance on decontamination and bioburden reduction of N95 masks for the COVID-19 pandemic, and one of the take-away messages is that the agency is still quite concerned about the impact of residues left over from those processes, given that some of these residues can be inhaled by the wearer and trigger health problems of their own.
RapidAI, which focuses on imaging for stroke, has received the U.S. FDA’s nod for Rapid ASPECTS. According to the company, it is the first neuroimaging analysis device to gain clearance in the computer-assisted diagnostic software category.
Machine learning-based diagnostics startup Dascena Inc. has won the U.S. FDA’s breakthrough device designation for its Previse algorithm, which is designed to predict acute kidney injury (AKI) before clinical symptoms. In early validation tests, Previse detected AKI more than a day before patients exhibited kidney damage or impaired function.
The comment period has closed on the U.S. FDA’s discussion draft for artificial intelligence (AI) in medical devices, a paper that attracted the attention of medical societies and regulated industry. One of the questions posed by industry was whether the FDA is in a position to deal with the massive volumes of data developers would have to disclose to the agency, creating concern that such disclosures would amount to little more than an obligatory and useless data dump.
The U.S. FDA has given its nod to Abbott Laboratories' next-generation Gallant implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) and cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) devices. The Gallant system pairs with Abbott's secure Mymerlinpulse, an iOS- and Android-compatible mobile smartphone app that aims to streamline communication between doctors and their patients.
Carag AG received investigational device exemption (IDE) approval from the U.S. FDA for its Carag Bioresorbable Septal Occluder (CBSO). The device is the first transcatheter septal occluder with a nonmetal, bioresorbable framework. The Baar, Switzerland-based company plans a "swift start" for a staged study trial in the U.S. with 250 patients, Carag's CEO Jérôme Bernhard told BioWorld.
Orthopedic implant startup Engage Surgical has received 510(k) clearance from the FDA for its Engage Partial Knee system, the only cementless partial knee implant available in the U.S. The company is introducing the product via a limited release to select surgical centers.
The push for a vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic may have no parallel in pharmaceutical history, and FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn vowed in a Senate hearing that the agency will rely on the agency’s traditional standards for scientific evidence in premarket reviews of those vaccines.
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