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Sarah Cowlishaw

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Sarah Cowlishaw’s practice focuses on life sciences regulatory and commercial law for pharmaceutical, medical device, food, and consumer products. Her advice on general regulatory matters includes borderline determinations, food classifications, adverse event and other reporting obligations, manufacturing controls, and labeling and promotion. Ms. Cowlishaw also advises on regulatory aspects of corporate/commercial deals, particularly regulatory due diligence.

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In three days’ time (on May 26, 2022), the EU Regulation on In-vitro-Diagnostic Medical Devices (the “IVDR”) becomes applicable in Europe.  But what will this mean for companies who sell in-vitro-diagnostic medical devices (“IVDs”) in the UK?

Following the UK’s exit from the EU, the IVDR will not become effective within Great Britain (i.e., England, Scotland and Wales), but it will apply to Northern Ireland.  Companies operating in both the EU/Northern Ireland and Great Britain will therefore need to be aware of the different obligations applicable to IVDs between these jurisdictions.

IVDR Background

The IVDR will replace the existing EU IVD Directive (the “IVDD”), but will not change the fundamental principles of how IVDs are regulated.  IVDs will be still be subject to a system of self-certification, notified body assessment (in certain instances) and CE marking.  Most notably, under the current system, ~90% of IVDs are self-assessed for conformity and self-certified by the IVD’s manufacturer.  By contrast under the IVDR, the new classification rules mean that this will be flipped to require ~90% of IVDs to be subject to notified body assessment.  This creates practical issues for manufacturers, since there are currently only seven notified bodies who are authorized to conduct conformity assessments under the IVDR.…

Continue Reading What do companies supplying IVDs to the UK market need to know about the IVDR?

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 machine learning (“AI/ML”).

Purpose

AI…

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 the aim to “develop…

On 6 May 2021, the European Commission published its “EU Strategy on COVID-19 Therapeutics” (the “Strategy”).  With the vaccination programme now under way, the EU is shifting focus towards the development, approval and procurement of COVID-19 therapeutic products.  The Commission intends to build on the experience from the EU vaccines strategy.  In particular, the aim is to have three new therapeutics available by October 2021 and possibly two further products by the end of the year.

The Strategy touches on a number of key areas for both biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies operating in the space:…
Continue Reading European Commission outlines Strategy on COVID-19 Therapeutics

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”) has published Guidance on the regulation of medical devices from 1 January 2021 (the “Guidance”).  It discusses the regulatory requirements that apply to medical devices after the end of the Brexit transitional period under the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement.  In summary:

  • From 1 January 2021, different rules

…

On 23 April 2020, the European Parliament and Council approved the European Commission’s proposal to delay the application date of the Medical Device Regulation 2017/745 (the “MDR”) by one year (from 26 May 2020 to 26 May 2021) by adopting New Regulation (EU) 2020/561 (the “New Regulation“).

Unusually, the New Regulation took effect…

The European Commission published today its proposal for the European Parliament and the Council to postpone the application date of the Medical Devices Regulation 2017/745 (“MDR”) by one year.  This publication comes only 9 days after the Commission announced its plans to postpone the MDR (see the InsideEULifeSciences blog post here).  The European Parliament…

The European Commission has announced today that it is working on a proposal to postpone the application date of the Medical Devices Regulation 2017/745 (“MDR”) for one year.  This proposal is to relieve the pressure on national authorities, notified bodies, manufacturers and other actors so they can focus on responding to the COVID-19 outbreak.  According…

On 23 March 2020, the Department of Health and Social Care (“DHSC”) issued a plea to technology companies to come up with digital support solutions for COVID-19.  The DHSC is making £500,000 available, with funding of up to £25,000 per company.  The challenge, named TechForce19, aims to increase community support for the elderly, vulnerable…

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”) has published a specification for a “Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System” (“RMVS”), setting out the clinical requirements for a ‘minimally acceptable’ ventilator for use in hospitals during the COVID-19 outbreak (the “RMVS Specification”).  The purpose of the RMVS Specification is to meet the UK healthcare system’s increased demand…