Bradley Merrill Thompson, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in BrightInsight, in “Regulatory Uncertainty Persists Around Medical Software,” by Mike Righter.
Following is an excerpt:
On January 7th the FDA announced the launch of a new streamlined regulatory framework for digital health devices. Specifically, the framework is initially focused on products which the FDA classifies as “software as a medical device” or SaMD, and the framework may eventually be expanded to all medical device software.
For those of you who are not familiar with SaMD, this includes software intended to be used for a medical purpose and that is not part of a hardware medical device. Examples of SaMD include smart drug dosing algorithms, (some) clinical decision support software, personalized patient interventions, and more.
The new framework is adapted from the typical de novo 510(k) review process where there is no option for establishing substantial equivalence since there are no available predicate devices – or in this case, predicate software. …
This announcement marks yet another update from the FDA on how it plans to regulate digital health solutions.
The numerous updates on digital health from the FDA in recent years suggest that regulations for software products will evolve at an increasing pace, adding complexity to biopharma and medtech companies’ already demanding regulatory responsibilities.
I caught up with Bradley Merrill Thompson, Medical Device, Digital Health and Combination Product Regulatory Attorney from Epstein Becker Green on the most recent FDA announcement.
“Over the last several years FDA has been churning out new guidance and regulations applying broadly to medical devices and specifically to software as a medical device. While policymakers generally say they want to encourage innovation, these new requirements often add significant complexity and unfortunately confusion to an already dense regulatory system. For those who may be new to the health technology space, or who simply lack the internal dedicated resources to monitor the regulatory landscape carefully, it seems to me the best way to succeed is to partner with a medical device manufacturer that has the experience with FDA regulation necessary to succeed.”
