Device makers know all too well the hazards of liability where their products are concerned, but those liabilities may soon balloon dramatically in the EU. Two pieces of EU legislation are in development, including the AI Liability Directive, which may have the effect of forcing the defendant in a liability case to prove that its product was not the cause of the alleged harm.

Just a few weeks later than expected, Inflammatix Inc. secured U.S. FDA clearance of the Triverity test system for use in emergency triage of patients with suspected acute infection or sepsis. The molecular blood test is the first to identify bacterial and viral infections and provide an all-cause risk evaluation of the likelihood of developing severe illness.

The European Union has implemented legislation governing artificial intelligence (AI) with more on tap, but the U.S. has to date lagged in that area. However, the House of Representatives has assembled a bipartisan task force for AI, one of several developments suggesting that 2025 will be an even more AI-focused year than 2024.

Regulatory approval for medical products can rely on real-world data (RWD) typically only for expanded indications for use, but payers have been missing in action where this data source is concerned. The U.S. CMS has floated a guidance to facilitate the use of RWD in coverage decisions, providing a long-overdue update to Medicare clinical trial policy.

China is deepening its regulatory reforms of drugs and devices to foster a globally competitive innovation ecosystem to transform China from a major pharmaceutical manufacturer into a global pharmaceutical powerhouse.

The Medicare coverage story of the Cardiomems device has a Homeric air about it, spanning nearly a decade starting with an adverse local coverage determination in 2016. Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott Laboratories finally brought the story full circle with a successful national coverage determination that gives the device nationwide coverage for Medicare patients without the need to wrangle with Medicare administrative contractors.

Med-tech firms have gnashed their teeth for decades over the use of the term “recall,” given that some recalls are mere corrections to product labels while others entail a full product withdrawal. The U.S. FDA recently provided a glossary of terms under the heading of recall – a move that comes short of industry’s preference that the term be jettisoned altogether.

The sedate uptake of pulsed field ablation (PFA) in Europe failed to presage the enthusiasm that drove the technology’s extraordinarily rapid adoption in the U.S. in 2024. Used to treat atrial fibrillation, PFA received its first U.S. FDA approval in Dec. 2023. At the time, Clarivate estimated that PFA had 7% of the global cardiac ablation market. By year-end 2024, it had 20% and Boston Scientific Corp. projected that PFA would represent up to half of the market by the close of 2025.

As 2025 makes its debut, one of the topics gaining momentum in health care is the diagnosis and potential treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, a scourge that threatens to overwhelm society and drain treatment budgets around the world. One company looking to find solutions to the oncoming neurodegenerative disease tsunami is privately held Sunbird Bio Inc., which is developing blood-based diagnostic platform for neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Beijing’s policy of favoring domestic medical technology is a matter of record, but the European Commission apparently heard enough from EU med tech firms to take action. The Commission posted notice that it may take steps to retaliate by restricting bids from China for EU government contracts in retaliation, a move certain to draw cheers from European device makers.