The EU has declared that it will investigate the anticompetitive practices of the People’s Republic of China where medical devices are concerned, a clear sign that device makers in the European Union succeeded in persuading Brussels that the Made in China 2025 initiative represents an intolerable form of economic adversarialism.
The EU’s proposed update of its pharmaceutical legislation will break the model of small companies acting as the vehicle for translating Europe’s rich research base for onward development by pharma, according to an analysis looking specifically at the impact the new rules would have on the biotech sector.
As their term in office winds to a close, MEPs in the two main political groupings of the European Parliament still have huge differences of opinion over the proposed reform of the EU pharmaceutical regulation and how best to achieve the stated aims of improving patient access whilst encouraging innovation.
With the use of artificial intelligence (AI) increasing in both biopharma R&D and the regulatory science used to evaluate new drug candidates in member states, the EMA and Heads of Medicines Agencies have laid out a five-year workplan to ensure that the European medicines regulatory network remains at the forefront in benefiting from AI in medicines regulation.
Concerns over the EU’s agonizingly clunky roll-out of the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) has largely focused on the capacity of notified bodies to manage the task of recertifying CE marks for legacy devices, but a new problem has emerged that promises to add yet more drag to the process. Amie Smirthwaite, senior vice president for innovation at RQM+, said EU member states’ competent authorities seem bent on pressing notified bodies (NBs) to treat guidance by the Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) as regulation, with the net result that “you almost need guidance for the guidance” in order to successfully navigate the EU market.
Supporting their conclusions with data from the same phase III study, the EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use adopted a positive opinion for extending the use of Oncopeptides AB’s Pepaxti (melflufen) to earlier lines of treating relapsed, refractory multiple myeloma even as the FDA dug in its heels about withdrawing the drug from the U.S. market.
The European Commission’s (EC’s) Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety recently published a survey of notified bodies. This was conducted between April and May 2023, eliciting responses from all 39 notified bodies designated under the Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) and 10 Notified bodies designated under the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR).
The European Union and the U.S. have wrapped up a data privacy framework that covers broad swaths of both economies, including the transmission of clinical trial data across the Atlantic Ocean. Drug and device makers that want to make use of this framework and thus jettison the contractual clause to ensure data privacy may find compliance with this new framework much more efficient in the long run, but will have to do a lot of compliance work on the front end to achieve those efficiencies.
Neko Health AB reported it has secured $67 million in investment capital to develop its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven full body scanner beyond its home country, Sweden. This series A round was led by Berlin-based Lakestar Advisors GmbH, with participation from Atomico (UK) Partners LLP from London and General Catalyst Group Management LLC from Cambridge, Mass. “Our new concept in body digitization technology, capable of rapidly collecting large amounts of health data, will enable us to identify illness at an early stage and take preventive action,” Hjalmar Nilsonne, CEO and co-founder of Neko Health told BioWorld.
The EU’s In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR) has not yet been fully implemented, but Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Authority (TGA) is wasting no time attempting to harmonize with the IVDR.