The European Union’s Medical Device Regulation (MDR) and In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR) each allow a hospital to develop a device or an in vitro diagnostic for use solely in that hospital, but there is no regulatory free pass despite the lack of commercial intent. While the latest guidance on these in-house tests acknowledges that the hospital must determine the degree to which it must comply with the relevant regulation, any hospital that makes and uses an in-house diagnostic or device must develop a risk management mechanism for that device or diagnostic, not an easy lift for entities that may be glancingly familiar at best with conventional regulatory schemes.
The European Union’s efforts to update its regulatory framework for medical devices was heralded as a long-overdue response to the Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) breast implant scandal, but the COVID-19 pandemic added significant drag to the implementation timelines. Those timelines have proven impracticable for other reasons as well and the problem will bleed into the new year and perhaps beyond to the detriment of patients and manufacturers.
EU health ministers have warned that developers of medical devices face trouble ahead in meeting deadlines for implementing the two new key regulations for medical devices (MDR) and in vitro diagnostics (IVDR). These were planned to enter into force in May 2021 and May 2022 respectively. EU executives and stakeholders have now all accepted that delays in complying with the regulations could result in issues achieving certification for medical devices, threatening shortages in the market.
The EU’s Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) has advised the device industry that many manufacturers seem ill prepared for the transition to the Medical Device Regulation (MDR), which will be fully in force for all devices as of May 2024. MDCG said that that any leniency shown after that date will be granted only for devices that address an urgent public health need, potentially leaving many existing authorizations out in the cold.
The mutual recognition agreement between Switzerland and the EU for medical devices lapsed in 2021, a development that was expected to add a significant amount of drag on Swiss device exports to EU nations.
The European Union’s (EU) Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) posted a guidance addressing verification of manufactured, high-risk in vitro diagnostics (IVDs), which indicates that manufacturers should submit samples to a reference lab for batch testing. However, the requirement for batch testing may not apply if no European reference lab has been designated for a test type, suggesting that some high-risk tests may go to market without adequate testing.
The guidances for in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) developed by the European Union’s Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) are only a reflection of the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR), but they do provide test developers with some important details.
The European Commission (EC) posted a new explanatory note on Tuesday that provides guidance on the codes set under the European In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR) to define the notified body (NB) scope of designation and qualification required for assessing a device. The clarifications explain how to use the different levels of codes to guide the proper allocation of resources, citing the anticipated challenges with limited experience and competency of NBs.
The European Commission's (EC) Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) has provided a set of templates to fulfill European Medical Device Regulation (MDR) requirements on submitting clinical investigation application and notification documents in the absence of the European database on medical devices (EUDAMED).
LONDON – Getting a handle on the specificity and sensitivity of rapid COVID-19 antibody tests, how they compare to each other and how they should be applied in population screening to understand who has had the virus and how it has spread, has been a source of difficulty and dispute between manufacturers, clinicians and public health experts.