BOSTON – The 2019 Medtech Conference included the annual FDA town hall session, and Jeff Shuren, director of the agency's device center, said the pace of scientific change is outstripping the agency's ability to keep up. Shuren said the solution might be "regulatory Legos," an approach that might eliminate the need to go to Congress for new statutory authorities every time device makers carve open a new technological frontier.

The FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health has released yet another draft guidance dealing with medical device premarket programs with the release of a draft guidance for the accreditation scheme for conformity assessment. The draft frequently references independent standards for assessing device performance and safety, thus bringing regulatory harmonization one step closer to a practicable reality.

The U.S. FDA's emphasis on device safety is well known. Now, the agency has published a draft guidance that aims to provide expedited reviews for device and diagnostic applications that are "reasonably expected to significantly improve" safety, which, in conjunction with the breakthrough devices program, suggests that many other applications will be in the queue for increasingly longer periods of time.

HONG KONG – Dreamed Diabetes Ltd., of Petah Tikva, Israel, has received both FDA clearance and the CE mark for an insulin dosing decision support software based on artificial intelligence (AI).

Chronic bronchitis affects more than 9 million people in the U.S., but current treatments fail to address the overproduction of mucus. Gala Therapeutics Inc., of Menlo Park, Calif., is looking to change that.

The FDA granted breakthrough device status to Prescient Metabiomics' Lifekit Prevent colorectal neoplasia test. Prescient Metabiomics is a subsidiary of Carlsbad, Calif.-based Prescient Medicine Holdings Inc.

Glaxosmithkline plc has won FDA approval to market Nucala (mepolizumab) for use in children as young as 6 with severe eosinophilic asthma (EA). The therapy already had FDA approval as an add-on maintenance treatment for kids with the same condition ages 12 and older. Approval of the sBLA, submitted last November, catches the U.S. market up to the EU, where Nucala has been approved as an add-on treatment for children ages 6 to 17 since August 2018.

It's been a busy September for Ardelyx Inc. so far. Less than two weeks after the Fremont, Calif-based company reported promising pivotal data for tenapanor in chronic kidney disease patients with hyperphosphatemia, the sodium hydrogen exchanger 2 (NHE3) inhibitor won FDA approval for use in irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C).