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I have always found that no matter how much a person looks forward to a change, there is still that little tad of reluctance – a fear that things may not turn out for the better. The hesitation, even if momentary, manifests itself in the simple and mundane everyday tasks like clicking install for a computer software update or taking life’s big leaps, like getting married. The concern for what the change may bring is all the greater when you didn’t really mind the way things were in the first place. From my experience, some of us in the in vitro diagnostics (IVD) industry are also experiencing a bit of such reluctance when it comes to the revision of the IVD directive. Especially when it has worked fine since 1998, so why the change? A reasonable question, but considering the differences that have arisen between the healthcare context of the late 1990s and today, it’s time that our industry give the proposal careful consideration in the lead up to its approval, taking into account the impact of each of the legislation’s proposed aspects.

January 2012 was a fruitful month for EU guidance on medical devices and produced among other MEDDEVs the MEDDEV 2.1/6 Qualification and Classification of stand alone software. This MEDDEV contains the latest thinking on how stand alone software, i.e. software that does not necessarily run on a medical device (but may have medical device functionality), qualifies as medical device under the three medical devices directives. If you are interested in a lot more background about the MEDDEV than I can provide in this blogpost (and especially nice flowcharts, which make life more simple for everyone), you can find it here.

eHealth is booming, hospitals, doctors, clinics, SMEs, big companies, everybody seems to be developing an app nowadays. It is great to see how many people are throwing their weight behind eHealth initiatives in every possible way: remote monitoring of demented senior citizens by means of image interpreting software, decision support systems, …, you name it. […]

There are some who are claiming that the EU Commission’s formal objection to eleven standards raised at the end of last year shows that the ‘New Approach’ has shortcomings and that the whole system is ripe for overhaul. I would argue far from it. The New Approach is a very clever system of product regulation, […]

Recent events in Brussels are pointing to a fresh, healthy airing of views and more robust debate on the Recast. (By the way, I’ve noticed that everybody says ‘Recast’ but not too many people know what a ‘Recast’ is. So for all those legal and regulatory ‘techies’ among you, click here, all others steer clear!). […]

It was with some trepidation that I placed myself in the ‘lions  den’ of the pharmaceutical industry at the annual Euromeeting of the Drug Information Association in Berlin today. Sharing a platform to discuss the evolution of medical device regulation with Mdme Georgette Lalis of the EU Commission and David Feigal, former FDA Commissioner, proved […]