The U.K. Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is among the regulators across the globe that are scrambling to keep pace with artificial intelligence (AI) in medical devices, releasing an April 30, 2024, paper on its own approach. One of the key considerations in this paper is that MHRA expects to up-classify some AI-enabled device software functions in its ongoing regulatory revamp, a prediction that suggests a more stringent premarket path for these products in the years ahead.

The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has posted an early value assessment review of digital technologies for the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, giving the conditional nod to only one technology — the Mycopd app by London-based My Mhealth Ltd.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated a tsunami of popular dystopian musings, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has its own concerns about AI’s impact on intellectual property. PTO recently announced that it is looking for feedback on the use of AI to produce what litigants might spuriously claim is prior art, a concern that must be addressed if the patent system is to avoid crashing under the weight of an unmanageable volume of AI-generated clutter.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finalized its overhaul of the health breach notification rule (HBNR), significantly expanding the types of software products subject to the agency’s oversight. However, the final rule was approved by the commission by a narrow 3-2 vote and was the subject of a scathing critique by the two dissenting commissioners, who argued that the FTC has once again exceeded its statutory authority in rewriting the HBNR.

The U.S. FDA issued a handful of warning letters to device makers in the month of April 2024, one of which is for the Waukegan, Il., plant operated by Cardinal Health Inc., of Dublin, Ohio. While the Waukegan plant escaped citations for most routine Quality System Regulation deviations, the FDA said Cardinal’s handling of contract manufactured luer locks and syringes fell well short of the agency’s expectations given that these issues led to a massive recall, a product removal and an FDA advisory.

The U.S. FDA’s senior managers often lament the lack of routine increases in taxpayer funding, a concern that Michael Rogers, the associate FDA commissioner for regulatory affairs, reiterated during a May 1 webinar. Rogers said the agency’s field inspectorate will be working through a large number of retirements over the next few years, a predicament he said will continue to be “a huge challenge” to overcome.

U.S. Medicare coverage of products for leg and foot ulcers has undergone a second review in less than a year thanks to pushback from stakeholders after the August 2023 issuance of proposed non-coverage policies for more than 100 cell and tissue-based products.

Royal Philips NV has come to terms over class-action litigation in which plaintiffs alleged that particulate matter in continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines has proven harmful to their health, bringing the matter to a $1.1 billion conclusion. Despite the 10-figure sum, news of the April 29 settlement sent the company’s share prices up by roughly a third in early morning trading, suggesting that investors had already baked their expectations of the settlement into their thinking about the company’s future.

The U.S. FDA’s final rule for regulation of lab-developed tests was hardly a shock to the world of regulation, but the final rule might provide a shock for sorts for smaller entities in the diagnostics space. Analysts with Leerink Partners said most companies they routinely track are unlikely to be immediately affected by the final rule, but noted that FDA regulation might make it tougher for smaller, new entries to the space to get to market.

The U.S. FDA has posted the long-awaited final rule for lab-developed tests, which amends the draft rule in a few key respects, but Reps. Diana DeGette and Larry Buchson, once again voiced their opposition to the rule. DeGette and Bucshon acknowledged that congressional inaction has left the FDA with few choices, but called again for passage of the Verifying Accurate, Leading-edge IVCT Development (VALID) Act, which they said is critical because “burdensome regulation of these medical products creates uncertainty in the future of innovation and patient care.”