The European Council adopted a regulation Jan. 25 giving the EMA a stronger role in crisis preparedness and the management of drugs and medical devices during a crisis.

Medtronic plc received FDA premarket approval Friday for use of its Intellis rechargeable and Vanta recharge-free neurostimulators in patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), suddenly tripling the number of spinal cord stimulators approved for the indication. Medtronic’s implantable spinal cord stimulators (SCS) now join Nevro Corp.’s HFX, which has had the distinction since July 2021 of being the only device with FDA approval for DPN, also known as painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN).

Supply chain issues overshadowed Royal Phillips NV fourth-quarter 2021 results, as the Dutch conglomerate reported sales of $5.5 billion (€4.9 billion), a 10% organic year-on-year decline. Philips management said sales were impacted by several headwinds, including supply chain challenges and postponement of equipment installations in hospitals related to COVID-19. The recall of the Respironics device also caused a double-digit decline in the sleep & respiratory business.

LONDON – The industry is expressing divergent views of changes to how the U.K. health technology assessment agency, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), will in the future select what products to assess and the methods and processes it will use to carry out its evaluations.

The FDA announced a class I recall of the Medtronic Hawk One directional atherectomy catheter system due to more than 160 reports of problems with the device’s guidewire. The catheter tip could break or separate when the guidewire prolapses, a problem that is associated with 55 injuries and no deaths, but the recall affects more than 95,000 units.

Cybersecurity challenges can represent an existential threat to patients on medical devices, and a new report by New York-based Cynerio Inc. highlights some of those challenges. One of the findings in the report is that nearly three-fourths of intravenous pumps, which make up 38% of a hospital’s internet of things (IoT) footprint, are vulnerable to an attack, a predicament that continues to put desperately ill patients in jeopardy.