The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence updated its guidance for the use of single-procedure insertion of scaffolds for knee cartilage repairs, specifying that only qualified surgeons should perform the procedure.
Negotiations for the sixth U.S. FDA device user fee agreement (MDUFA VI) are officially underway, and the Aug. 4 meeting highlighted some of the differences between the agency’s and industry’s expectations.
The FDA announced July 17 that Dexcom Inc. recalled a series of continuous glucose monitor receivers for a failure of speakers to issue an alert for out-of-specification blood glucose measures. This is a clear demonstration of the principle that greater device functionality often creates new types of risk.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced July 31 that Illumina Inc. agreed to pay $9.8 million to settle allegations it sold genomic sequencing equipment that suffered from cybersecurity problems. The settlement concludes a qui tam lawsuit filed by a former employee and highlights the hazards of poor cybersecurity for med-tech firms.
The Senate Appropriations Committee met July 31 to markup legislation that would fund the Department of Health and Human Services – including an additional $400 million for the National Institutes of Health. The increase in NIH funding repudiates the Trump administration’s efforts to drastically cut those appropriations, which is an outcome marking a clear win for companies in the life sciences.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently returned a decision in a case pitting Shockwave Medical Inc. against Cardiovascular Systems Inc. in a decision that adds a new wrinkle to the question of how prior art can and cannot be used to eviscerate a patent.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a $14.6 million grant it received for an upgrade of its IT infrastructure. The same grant mechanism is leveraged by the Department of Justice, which is a clear sign that U.S. enforcement will be more vigorously enabled by sophisticated analytics going forward.
The ink is barely dry on the draft Medicare physician fee schedule for 2026, but three cardiology societies blasted the draft for cutting rates for left atrial appendage closure procedures – a move they said needlessly endangers patients.
Understanding neurological disease requires several things, including a clear view of the connectome, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health may have a solution in the form of a new MRI system that allows the user to examine neural connections at the mesoscopic and microscopic scales.
An advisory committee for the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services endorsed a series of patient- and clinician-reported outcomes that might not be reflected in the evidentiary bases for currently available technologies. This development suggests some manufacturers will have to conduct new studies of their devices in order to sustain Medicare coverage.
