Technology

On 27 October 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), Health Canada, and the United Kingdom’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”) (together the “Regulators”) jointly published 10 guiding principles to inform the development of Good Machine Learning Practice (“GMLP”) for medical devices that use artificial intelligence and
Continue Reading U.S., UK and Canada Regulators Collaborate to Develop “10 Guiding Principles” for Good Machine Learning Practices (“GMLP”) for Medical Devices

The Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”) has published a “Consultation on the future regulation of medical devices in the United Kingdom” (the “Consultation”), which will run until 25 November 2021.  The consultation sets out proposed changes to the UK medical device regulatory framework with
Continue Reading Consultation on the Future Regulation of Medical Devices in the UK, including Work Programme for Software and AI Medical Devices

On August 23, 2021 the UK Government published its report entitled “Harnessing technology for the long-term sustainability of the UK’s healthcare system” (the “Report”). The Report calls for system-wide adoption of technology in the UK health system to enable transformative change that will benefit the health and wellbeing of the UK and promote economic growth.  However, the Report cautions that technology alone cannot overcome the inequalities that lead to disparities in health outcomes and that digital tools for health should be accessible to all, or risk exacerbating health inequalities as a result of a “digital divide”. The Report notes how the COVID-19 pandemic has both exposed the limitations of the current system and highlighted the capability of the UK National Health Service (“NHS”) for responding with flexibility and agility. The Report also makes several recommendations to the UK Government, including to set up “Demonstrators” to test the system-wide application of healthcare technologies.

The Report arrives ahead of the expected publication of the UK Government’s review into the use of health data for research and analysis (see our earlier blog here), and outlines the opportunities presented by technology in the context of public healthcare systems.Continue Reading UK Government Publishes Report on Harnessing Technology For Benefit of the UK Healthcare System

The International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (“ICMRA”) has published a report on the use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) to develop medicines (the “AI Report”) that provides a series of recommendations on how regulators and stakeholders can address challenges posed by AI.  The ICMRA notes that there are numerous opportunities to apply AI to medicines development, but that AI poses a number of challenges to existing regulatory frameworks.  The AI Report discusses these opportunities and challenges in detail based on several case studies, and provides a set of recommendations for implementation by the ICMRA and its member authorities, which includes the European Medicines Agency (the “EMA”), the USA’s Food and Drug Administration, and the World Health Organisation.  Based on the AI report, we expect to see an increased focus on adapting regulatory frameworks to deal with AI products going forwards both on an international and national level.
Continue Reading ICMRA Publishes Report and Recommendations on AI and Medicinal Products

On June 22, 2021, Congressional leaders Diana DeGette (D-DO) and Fred Upton (R-MI) released a bipartisan follow-up to the 2016 21st Century Cures Act“Cures 2.0”—a “discussion draft” at this stage—is intended to build upon the Cures Act.  The draft lays out several notable policies related to digital
Continue Reading Reps. DeGette and Upton Release Highly-Anticipated “Cures 2.0” Draft

FDA has long recognized the significant potential of artificial intelligence- and machine learning- (AI/ML-) based software as a medical device (SaMD) to transform health care as well as the unique challenges presented by AI/ML-based software under the Agency’s traditional medical device regulatory framework.  On January 12, 2021, FDA issued the
Continue Reading FDA Releases AI Action Plan