This year’s annual meeting of the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) revolves around regulatory reliance, a notion that approaches but does not quite stray into the realm of the mutual recognition agreement.

U.S. deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco recently outlined some new programs related to federal enforcement across the economy, including some novel elements related to artificial intelligence (AI).

The U.S. FDA’s warning letter to Fresenius Kabi AG of Homburg, Germany highlighted several problems with the compliance practices at the company’s plant in North Andover, Mass., but there is more than just a compliance issue at play. Fresenius had acquired the Ivenix infusion pump and the inspected research and development site in its 2022 acquisition of Ivenix Inc., another example of the regulatory and compliance hazards of acquisitions in the med-tech space.

The World Trade Organization wrapped up its 13th ministerial conference and, as the saying goes, no news is good news. Life science trade associations in the U.S. lauded the end of the conference without an extension of intellectual property rights waivers for therapies and diagnostics for the COVID-19 pandemic, although this outcome was not entirely surprising.

The U.S. FDA announced several new and updated recalls recently, including a new recall of incubators made by Wipro GE Health Pvt. Ltd., of Bangalore, India, which may be subject to an increased risk that the infant may fall out of the system.

Three U.S. federal government agencies announced that their focus on consolidation in health care markets may soon ramp up, given concerns that consolidation may be affecting the cost and quality of patient care.

Medtronic plc and Irvine, Calif.-based Axonics Inc. have been locked in a struggle over several patents in the past few years, but now Medtronic has shifted some of its effort from the U.S. courts to the executive branch.

The U.S. FDA has proposed an update to an existing program for user fee reductions for companies grossing less than $100 million, although this latest update is much stingier than that. The update would provide registration fee relief for entities with revenues of $1 million or less, but only if that business is in bankruptcy proceedings, a meager bit of relief considering that registration fees in fiscal 2024 run to less than $7,700.

The U.S. FDA reported Feb. 29 that data on the Hintermann series H3 total ankle system suggest a significantly higher rate of device failure than seen in premarket clinical studies, a problem that has arisen even though only five years have passed since the agency approved the device.

The COVID-19 pandemic is well known for increasing telehealth utilization, including remote patient monitoring, but there are still issues with payer coverage policies even a year after the formal end of the public health emergency for COVID.