On January 31, 2022, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of a final guidance for industry and FDA staff entitled “Principles of Premarket Pathways for Combination Products”. The final guidance is available on the FDA’s website. It provides FDA’s current thinking on principles for premarket review of combination products. It finalizes previously available draft guidance, dated February 6, 2019, which altogether are part of FDA’s efforts to implement section 3038 of the 21st Century Cures Act expressly addressing combination products. The final guidance is nonbinding.
Continue Reading FDA Finalizes Guidance on Combination Products

On October 27, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in collaboration with Health Canada, and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), published Guiding Principles for the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in medical devices.   The principles are designed to support good machine learning practices (GMLP) and to help promote safe, effective, and high-quality medical devices that use AI/ML. The FDA is accepting public comment on these principles on an ongoing basis.
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In September 2019, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued a new draft “Clinical Decision Support Software” guidance for public comments, which are due December 26, 2019. Concurrently, the agency published updates to four related guidance documents centered on regulation of digital health software products along with a consolidated summary titled “Changes to Existing Medical Software Policies Resulting from Section 3060 of the 21st Century Cures Act,[1] but is not soliciting comment on those. All of these guidance documents now account for the exclusion of certain software functions from the definition of “device” under the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act) amendments to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) in 2016 and clarify FDA’s enforcement and monitoring positions vis-à-vis its legal authorities.

The rapid expansion of software and mobile medical applications in health care has made this guidance necessary in order to manage the FDA’s regulatory scope and provide clarity to medical device and health care companies seeking to use more software and mobile app solutions in their products and services. Digital health stakeholders, particularly medical device manufacturers, software developers, and mobile medical application developers should consider the effect of these guidance documents on their go-to-market strategies and submit comments regarding items from the FDA’s newest guidance documents that would create unnecessary burden or not address patient safety issues or other risks that FDA seeks to mitigate. We summarize the key points of each of the FDA’s guidance documents below.Continue Reading FDA Seeks Comment on Clinical Decision Support Software Guidance and Issues Policy Updates on its Oversight Authority Regarding Medical Software and Apps

On April 17, 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its Medical Device Safety Action Plan which outlines FDA’s intended steps to address medical device safety while preserving enough space for innovation in the market.

The FDA’s plan is the latest effort by the FDA on medical device safety, including a recent budget request seeking $70 million to create a Center of Excellence on Digital Health that would, among other things, craft new regulations for third-party certification for developing medical devices. This comes as FDA is pushing guidance and innovative approaches for oversight of digital health (see our blog).

According to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s announcement, the FDA’s plan organized into five points that seek to balance patients’ timely access to devices and safety and effectiveness.
Continue Reading FDA’s Medical Device Safety Action Plan

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced several new initiatives that reflect its ongoing commitment to maintain patient safety, while also championing the need and opportunity for health care innovation.

During opening day of Health Datapalooza, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb highlighted the critical import of novel digital health tools in achieving patient-centered care, and outlined how the agency is committed to moving the ball forward in health care innovation through the following initiatives:
Continue Reading FDA Advances Flexibility-Based Framework for Digital Health and AI

On October 28, 2015, the U.S. Copyright Office of the Library of Congress (the “Office”) issued a Final Rule containing several exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that expanded access to medical device computer programs and the patient data they generate.  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows intellectual property holders to install “technological protection measures” (TPMs) in their software which blocks unauthorized inspection of data to protect copyright.  Under the Act, the Library of Congress grants exemptions to TPMs every three years.

In the Final Rule, the Office included an exemption for researchers investigating computer programs on devices and machines for good faith security research. The Office found that legitimate security research has been hindered by TPMs that limit access.  Covered devices include medical devices used for patient implantation or corresponding personal monitoring systems, as long as they are not used by patients or for patient care.  The research exemption begins 12 months after the regulation’s effective date, meaning it starts on October 28, 2016.  Additionally, the Office created an exemption for patients who seek to passively access information that is already being generated by their own medical devices or personal monitoring systems.  Unlike the research exemption, the patient monitoring exemption takes effect immediately, and it is limited to patients themselves, as opposed to researchers or other parties.Continue Reading U.S. Copyright Office Authorizes New Access to Medical Device Programs and Data under Digital Millennium Copyright Act