Bradley Merrill Thompson, a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in MobiHealthNews, in “New York Attorney General Settles with Three Mobile Health Apps,” by Jonah Comstock.
Following is an excerpt:
Bradley Merrill Thompson, a partner at Epstein Becker Green who specializes in regulatory law for digital health, pointed out that this action sets an interesting precedent, since it highlights the sheer number of potential enforcers developers in the health space need to consider.
“This is interesting, because yet again we have an agency other than FDA weighing in on what it thinks is misleading advertising,” he told MobiHealthNews in an email. “Over the last several years, we've seen the FTC pursue mobile app companies on the basis of unsupported claims in the medical realm. Indeed it has pursued claims that would likely fall under FDA regulation. But the federal government doesn't have a monopoly on regulating advertising, even for health-related products. Most states have agencies that oversee advertising within their state, even though much of the advertising is done broadly across the states. This means software developers have to think about potentially all 50 states, and whether an enforcer in any state might take offense at their claims. Clearly at least the New York Attorney General is not relying on the federal government – either the FDA or FTC – to take appropriate actions.”