Medical Devices Group

  • Community
  • Webinars
  • Jobs
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Go Premium
« Back to Previous Page
like 12 comments  share
Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
June 2017
FDA Commissioner lays groundwork for digital health innovation plan including certification program
2 min reading time

As originally shared by Rana Arefieg.

In a blog post this week, Scott Gottlieb highlighted the Digital Health Innovation Plan that will clarify how the FDA regulates digital medical devices and apps.


Julie Omohundro
Principal Consultant at Class Three, LLC

Thanks, Ginger. I’ve been thinking that if these devices pose low enough risk to support market entry based on certification alone, they pose low enough risk that they would be Class I 510(k) exempt, which would potentially leave them at liberty to decide what certifications, if any, to pursue.

FDA already put out a guidance that, as I understand it, indicated FDA had no intention (not even via 510(k) exemption) to regulate non-invasive/non-implanted “general wellness” products, which I think would include a lot of the lower risk “digital health” products. Then Congress hastily passed the 21st Century Cures Act, excluding “digital” wellness products from the definition of a medical device, without reference to invasiveness or implant.

On the whole, it seems to me that this area may be suffering from too many cooks, not all of whom necessarily belong in a kitchen.

Julie Omohundro
Principal Consultant at Class Three, LLC

I don’t see how a certification program would be expected to support innovation. I would expect the cost of certification to stifle innovation, rather than promote it.

When the FDA “certifies” a new device, the cost of that “certification” is heavily subsidized with tax dollars. FDA “certifies” companies to be in compliance with the QSR for free, while a hefty fee must be paid for ISO 13485 certification. Many startups have been taken aback to discover that the fee a notified bodies would charge to certify its innovative new device are many times higher than FDA’s user fee for review of the same device.

Am I missing something here?

Eran Yona
Pharma, Medical, Cannabis GMP, regulation, facility design, manufacturing technology, development, Quality & validation

Important step. Better if it was 2 years ago

Ginger Cantor
Founder/Principal Consultant at Centaur Consulting LLC

These devices, if stand-alone software and 510(k) exempt, would have more to do than now if they had to certify if something like IEC 62304 certification was required or expected.

But for typical hardware/software software devices, certification to IEC 60601-1, and EMC IEC 60601-1-2 and other standards is already expected. Just would not have the expense and timeline for FDA review, after you go through certification. But you better have that QSR compliant documentation in your files in the event of inspection!

Aaron Liang
Watson Health Quality Analyst at IBM

A lot depends on the details of the certification and the parties that are going to be involved in making those determinations. If CE Marking is any indication, I think we need to look hard at the parties overseeing certification because there is much inconsistency between the different bodies and even within their own teams. Also, with the focus on digital health/SaMD I think these bodies would need to examine how they assess products because many of them still bring a hardware oriented view of things.

Catherine Toy
Digital Media Marketing Consultant and Content Contributor at Dorschel Automotive Group

This certification program sounds very interesting! aycan has an FDA cleared mobile iPad app for viewing DICOM images.

Noam Sahbti
President and CEO, ph5insights

Thanks Rana Arefieg for posting this. Scott Gottlieb is a blessing for the healthcare industry in the US. The digital capabilities available today and the ones in development are the base for reducing cost of healthcare and he gets that.
One example for the issues these “certificates” will solve is when a therapy-supporting digital platform (not marketing) works through a mobile device and this mobile device goes through software update (say iPhone goes from IOS10.2 to IOS10.3). Until now the entire platform was required to go through regulatory review before it could upgrade to adapt to the new IOS on the mobile device, this could have taken months.
We are expecting to see many more initiatives by FDA and policy makers which will allow for the rapid development of new approaches to enhance therapy and get to better outcomes and reduced costs through utilizing digital technology in the entire workflow of medical practice.

Jake Naramore
Sales & Business Development Resource

Most FDA initiatives seem to be driven by corruption & inefficiencies which lead to sub-standard healthcare.

Daniel Skalko
Senior Director/VP Bern Medical

Change and progress

Sandip Salokhe
Incharge Central Laboratory and Blood Bank

Lot depends upon who is certifying and validating

David Lee Scher,MD, FACP, FACC, FHRS, FESC
Cardiologist, #DigitalHealth Consultant, Award-Winning Blogger

I was proud to be part of Happtique which foresaw the need for such a certification program for mobile medical apps.

Fred Ofulu
Business Development Officer at Wastematters Nig Ltd

Good morning sir, please can I have further details

Marked as spam
Posted by Joe Hage
Asked on June 18, 2017 3:06 am
60 views
  • Follow
  • Unfollow
  • Report spam
like 12 comments  share

Meet your next client here. Join our medical devices group community.

« Back to Previous Page
Ask a Question
Leave a Comment

We still use LinkedIn to access our site because it’s the only way to “pull in” your LinkedIn photo, name, and hyperlink to your profile page, all vital in building your professional network. When you log in using LinkedIn, you are giving LinkedIn your password, not me. I never see nor store your LinkedIn credentials.

Stay connected with us.

By signing up you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy.

Categories

  • Capital/Investment
    • Business Model
    • Funding
  • Careers
  • Design/Devel
    • Design
    • Development
    • Human Factors
    • Labeling
    • Material Selection
    • R&D
    • Trials and Post-Market
  • Featured
  • Industry
    • Announcements
    • Device Tax
    • Hospital and Health Care
    • Innovation
    • Medtech
  • LinkedIn, etc.
  • Markets
    • Africa
    • Americas
    • Asia
    • Australia
    • Europe
  • Regulating
    • CE Marking
    • EU
    • FDA
    • FDA/EU etc.
    • Notified Bodies
    • Quality
    • Regulatory
  • Selling
    • Distribution
    • Intellectual Property
    • Marketing/Sales
    • Reimbursement
  • Worth bookmarking!
Feature your job here.
logo

Companion to LinkedIn's 350,000 member community

  • Contact
  • Medical Device Marketing
  • In Memoriam
  • Medical Device Conference

The Medical Devices Group   |   Copyright © 2025 Terms, Conditions & Privacy

Medical Devices Group
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.