The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) reported that it will seek to deepen its collaboration with other regulators, a list that includes but is not limited to the FDA. MHRA said that the U.K.-U.S. reliance program would apply to not only class II devices under the 510(k) and de novo programs, but to class III PMA devices as well, promising a somewhat more streamlined path to a market ripe with opportunity for the devices and diagnostics industries.

The International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) has issued a draft guidance for predetermined change control plans for software as a medical device. The problem for advocates of regulatory harmonization is that the IMDRF draft overlaps awkwardly with the FDA’s approach, which has issued separate policies for the AI subset of device software functions and a separate guidance for all other devices, including non-AI software.

The U.S. FDA device center’s guidance agenda for fiscal 2026 is the classic case of something old and something new, but what was borrowed from FY 2025 may make some blue.

The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has decided to lean into personalized medicine with the adoption of the concept of a “preference zone” for determining when a therapy can and cannot be used for a specific patient, a concept that is liable to lead to more demanding postmarket surveillance.

AI seems to suggest that a world of problems with health care spending may become more manageable, but Stephen Bittinger, a shareholder in the D.C. office of the law firm of Polsinelli PC told BioWorld that all the headaches surrounding validation of these algorithms suggests a need for an independent AI validation institute.

The market for colorectal cancer screening tests seems poised to heat up considerably with a recent request for Medicare coverage for Genoscopy’s Colosense test, but some who commented on the proposal have misgivings about the lower level of specificity seen in the Colosense relative to the Cologuard.

Palmetto GBA, the Medicare administrative contractor for most of the southeastern U.S., has opened a coverage analysis for the use of irreversible electroporation for a variety of cancers, but Palmetto has made it clear that it is unwilling to cover the procedure pending additional evidence.

The U.S. FDA’s early alert program has communicated a number of potential device malfunction episodes since its inception in late 2024, but the agency announced that the program is now moving out of the pilot phase to include all device types as of Sept. 29.

Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc., agreed to pay $7.2 million to settle allegations that two photoplethysmography products it distributed were the subject of illicit Medicare claims, a problem the company inherited when it decided to do business with Semler Scientific Inc. of Campbell, Calif.

The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence unveiled a plan that is designed to provide less cumbersome market access for medical technologies.