For the third time in as many years, Health Canada, the U.S. FDA and the UK Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency have teamed up to issue a set of recommendations for artificial intelligence used in or as a medical device.
Criticisms over the U.S. FDA’s use of advisory committees led the agency to hold a June 13 public hearing during which FDA commissioner Bob Califf said the agency is working to improve the experience of special government employees who take part in these hearings.
Zymeworks Inc. has obtained IND clearance from the FDA for ZW-171, a novel T-cell targeting bispecific antibody for mesothelin (MSLN)-expressing cancers. Clinical development will begin this year, and additional applications will be filed in the second half of the year seeking trial clearances in other territories.
Just as it is for terminally ill cancer patients, time is of the essence for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the clinical meaningfulness of Eli Lilly and Co.’s donanemab is the time it gives patients before the disease progresses, Reisa Sperling, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the U.S. FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee June 10.
Aktiia SA recently received a CE mark for Calfree, its optical blood pressure monitoring technology that does not require calibration with a traditional cuff. The Calfree system can be integrated into a wide range of third-party devices, significantly improving hypertension management and as a result the quality of patients’ lives.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the FDA’s relaxed regulation of the abortion drug mifepristone when it ruled June 13 that the organizations challenging those changes lacked the standing to do so.
The Biosecure Act missed its first chance at a congressional ride June 11 when the U.S. House Rules Committee didn’t include it, as many had expected, on the list of potential riders the House will consider for its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, a must-pass defense spending bill for fiscal 2025. But that doesn’t mean the bill will be stranded by the wayside.
The prior authorization practices of Medicare Advantage programs have drawn the ire of industry and physician societies alike recently, prompting the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to open a request for information in January 2024. Congress seems poised to take matters into its own hands, however, with legislation that would force these plans to work to speed up these prior authorization processes, a bill that has the enthusiastic support of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association.
The U.S. FDA granted Avicenna.AI SAS 510(k) clearance for Cina-VCF, its artificial intelligence-based solution that detects unsuspected vertebral compression fractures (VCFs) in patients undergoing chest or abdomen CT scans. The company hopes that early detection of VCFs will allow patients to be checked for osteoporosis and start treatments early to reduce the risk of their fracture deteriorating.
The U.S. FTC’s campaign against the Orange Book listing of patents claiming device components gained momentum when a federal judge in New Jersey ordered Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. to delist five device patents pertaining to its Proair HFA (albuterol sulfate) inhaler.
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