The U.S. FDA posted notice of a medical device correction of Abiomed Inc.'s Impella series of left-side blood pumps because of the risk of perforation of the left ventricle during device placement. The FDA noted that it has received 129 reports of serious injury and 49 reports of fatalities associated with these devices, but did not indicate whether device malfunction was the source of these adverse events. Abiomed advises customers that the device should be implanted “with special care” in patients during active cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and to review some updated warnings in the product’s instruction for use statement.
The U.S. FDA’s pending final rule for regulation of lab-developed tests has proven unusually controversial even for the FDA, but Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) stated in a March 21 hearing that congressional inaction has left the agency in an uncomfortable spot.
Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Renovacare Inc., has come to terms over allegations that the company engaged in what the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said was a pump-and-dump scheme designed to defraud the company’s investors. The initial SEC complaint dated May 28, 2021, alleges that Renovacare and company executives began making misleading statements to investors as far back as July 2017, making this yet another cautionary tale of duplicitousness in life science startups.
The U.S. FDA has followed up on reports of problematic syringes made by several companies in mainland China, recommending that U.S. suppliers, consumers and health care organizations stop using these products unless no alternatives are available. The agency said it has issued warning letters to three of these companies, at least one of which appears to have been the supplier of Monoject syringes that have been the subjects of recent FDA recalls.
The U.S. FDA is holding a series of town halls on the use of sterilization methods as alternatives to ethylene oxide (EtO) in response to other federal agency rulemaking, and some of these changes in sterilization methods will not require a new regulatory filing.
The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has released a preliminary health technology assessment for three modules of the Proknow series of software systems by Stockholm-based Elekta AB, which may improve the delivery of radiotherapy services across the U.K. However, NICE indicated it wants to see more evidence regarding the impact of these software modules on radiotherapy treatment plans.
The U.S. FDA posted two warning letters to device makers in the second week of March 2024, one each to Exactech Inc., of Gainesville, Fla., and the other to Nobles Medical Technology II Inc., of Fountain Valley, Calif. The themes of these warnings are entirely different, with Noble receiving a warning regarding clinical trial oversight and Exactech taking a hit for routine good manufacturing compliance issues, showing that the FDA is active in the post-COVID compliance realm.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued its long-awaited final rule governing emissions of ethylene oxide (EtO), a rule announced by the agency with the concurrence of Xavier Becerra, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. However, the final rule provoked an immediate response from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who said the final rule will “put American lives in danger.”
There are coincidences and then there are big coincidences, the latter of which might describe a new U.S. FDA draft guidance and a major cybersecurity breach. The agency has issued a draft update to its premarket cybersecurity guidance even as the Department of Health and Human Services announced an investigation into the hack of the IT system at Change Healthcare, a pair of developments that seem likely to set the world of connected medical devices on its collective ear.
Medicare coverage of medical software in the U.S. is generally not the subject of flattering remarks from industry, but the novelty of the subcategory of artificial intelligence (AI) would seem to suggest that the Medicare problem for AI is even more severe. That suspicion was borne out by consultant Bruce Quinn who said at a public meeting here in Washington that some areas of software coverage and reimbursement, including AI software, “are just a train wreck,” a problem he said is especially acute in fee-for-service care.
