The U.S. FDA has announced the next stage in its program to down-classify a series of in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) from class III to class II, a change that would significantly ease the premarket requirements for these test types. Much of the emphasis here is on companion diagnostic (CDx) tests, a category of products that is the focus of a separate FDA imperative, but there are those who view this down-classification regime as little more than a meager attempt to paste over a massive impending regulatory overhang.
Royal Philips NV recently received some good news from the U.S. FDA which cleared its latest transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) ultrasound transducer, amidst ongoing efforts with the regulatory body to address problems with its sleep business. The X11-4t Mini 3D TEE transducer is 35% smaller than previous versions and is designed to provide cardiologists with high quality 3D images of the heart and its internal structure.
Hologic Inc.’s focus on women’s health is looking like a brilliant move as the company lands U.S. FDA clearance for its Genius digital diagnostics system with the Genius cervical artificial intelligence algorithm, making it the first digital cytology system with clearance, the company said.
The U.S. FDA cleared an IND for Neurobo Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s weight loss drug, prompting the company to say a phase I study in obesity will begin sometime during the first half of this year. The stock catapulted upward on the news.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has drawn blistering criticism over the past couple of years over its handling of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, criticism that was anything but blunted in a Jan. 31 webinar on the subject.
Cognito Therapeutics Inc. closed a $35 million extension to the series B fundraising round it started in 2023, bringing the total for the round to $108 million and the total funding to date to $128 million. Cognito is developing Spectris, a wearable medical device that provides visual and auditory stimulation for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders.
Newly approved gene therapies targeting sickle cell disease will be the first focus of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Cell and Gene Therapy Access Model, the agency said Jan. 30.
The U.S. SEC denied a petition asking it to amend its 50-year-old no-admit/no-deny settlement policy that slaps a perpetual gag on parties that opt to resolve SEC allegations through settlements rather than in court.
The U.S. FDA dropped the final rule for the Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR), the long-awaited blending of the agency’s own Quality System Regulation (QSR) and ISO 13485.
The U.S. FDA added a second pulsed field ablation (PFA) system to the approved list with its greenlight for Boston Scientific Corp.’s Farapulse for treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF). Farapulse joins Medtronic plc’s Pulseselect, which garnered FDA approval in December. Two other PFA devices scored regulatory wins since the new year: Biosense Webster inc.’s Varipulse secured approval from the Japanese Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare and Sichaun Jinjiang Electronic Medical Device Technology Co. Ltd. got the nod from China’s National Medical Products Administration.