Stop the Presses and add these earth shattering Regulations to your reading list for the next week or two:

• Medical Device Regulation (EU) 2017/745 and
• In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (EU) 2017/746

Bassil Akra of TÜV SÜD some of the costs of this transition in his post on LinkedIn. It ain’t going to be cheap!

Back to our regularly scheduled post:

This Friday 5 May 2017 should be marked in your calendar or journal as a momentous date when the EU Official Journal will publish the Medical Device and In-Vitro Diagnostic Regulations and the transition periods for both start (3 years for the MDR & 5 years for the IVDR)!!  This is the start of a turning point for many medical device and IVD manufacturers as the clock starts ticking away til the end of the transition periods of these new Regulations.  If you haven’t started your transition planning strategies for your products & product families the pressure should be mounting quickly as there is so much to deal with for this transition time. Check out these resources for learning more about the MDR & IVDR. See below for some more details about the challenges you need to consider and START PLANNING for NOW (don’t wait)!

There is no grandfathering once the transition period ends for the applicable Regulation.  So, in 3 years and a day or so if you don’t meet the MDR or 5 years & a day or so if you don’t meet the IVDR you won’t be able to CE Mark your device and sell or distribute your medical or IVD device in the EU (& hopefully the UK which is in the middle of Brexit implications as UK will not be part of the EU by end of transition period).

We have talked about some of the challenges in the implementation of the MDR but here are more details to consider for your strategic planning:

• New definitions to deal with including nanomaterial, Unique Device Identifier, interoperability, economic operator, among other new & modified definitions.
• Person Responsible for Regulatory Compliance: Identify personnel that is  responsible for regulatory compliance with the Regulation and have a minimum work experience in the applicable device field and a minimum of academic qualifications.
• Enormous Single EU Database (not ready yet): Impacts all Economic Operators (which includes manufacturers) – Will register all devices, manufacturers, Economic Operators, CE Certificates, new clinical investigations, & incident reporting.  Will manage all Unique Device Identifications and Single Registration Numbers (SRN).
• Regulations are much more explicit now for the Quality Management System (QMS) & Risk Management System (RMS) requirements.  Beyond just what is in EN 13485 (ISO 1385:2016) & EN 14971
• Economic Operators (new to MDR): Impacts the activities of EU Representatives, Importers, Distributors & Manufacturers – Different Responsibilities depending on type of Economic Operators.
• Traceability of Devices Between Economic Operators: Between all Economic Operators (wow that in itself can be huge!) and all the way down to the healthcare institutions & in some cases down to the patients devices used on.
• Annex I now called Safety & Performance Requirements (not Essential Requirements): Much more prescriptive, addition of UDI & SRN to labelling requirements, all manufacturers will need to update all their Annex I checklists, new Clinical Evaluation & Clinical Performance Evaluations requirements
• Clinical Data: Much more prescriptive especially for higher risk class devices (class III & implantable devices) – Clinical Investigations needed in many cases now & restrictions of the type of clinical data allowed for class III devices (much more restrictive using equivalency data), post market clinical follow-up requirements for high risk class devices (i.e. annual summary reports for Class III & implantable devices).
• Notified Bodies: Much more prescriptive in competency requirements, conflict of interest, designation process, etc.  The end result is fewer Notified Bodies & Notified Bodies with narrower scopes after the designation process.  Also, with the nexus of  the EU regulations, Canada’s MDSAP requirements, and medical device manufacturers transitioning to ISO 13485:2016 the Notified Bodies resources are being strained which means less resources available to the medical device manufacturers. The limited resources means it may be a challenge to complete these processes without hitting the edge or past the transition period so start now or you may not be able to keep all your CE medical devices on the EU market in about 3 years from now when the clock runs out.

If you need help with your EU MDR or IVDR transition planning please email Leo Eisner at Leo at EisnerSafety dot com, or call Leo at +1 (503)-244-6151. He is the Principal Consultant of Eisner Safety Consultants.

Since our original post (below) we have made 3 additional updates to provide you with a lot more info and resources.  Check out our updates in this LinkedIn Article.

Updates are all underlined:

Mar 7, ’17 updates:

* addition of the EU Council vote & date of release of final text

* an important change that manufacturers will need to deal with, and

* addition of 4 resources to list of helpful resources

Mar 12, ’17 update: add in Table of Contents LinkedIn Article

Mar 17, ’17 update: RAPS Article by Rod Ruston

Our original post was on March 1, 2017 is titled EU MDR & IVDR – Final Versions – Are You Ready, Transition Period Starts Soon.

If you need help with your EU MDR or IVDR transition planning please email Leo Eisner at Leo at EisnerSafety dot com, or call Leo at +1 (503)-244-6151. He is the Principal Consultant of Eisner Safety Consultants.

Some of the changes manufacturers will have to deal with include:

*Quality Management Systems
*Clinical Evidence Requirements
*Authorized Representatives Requirements and Liability
*You may need to change Notified Bodies if their scope changes during the designation process
*Need to prepare and implement for Unique Device Identifiers (UDI), starting with the highest risk class
*Person responsible for regulatory compliance in your company – minimum requirements
*Classification rules will change & some devices that are not considered medical device currently will fall under the MDR
*Classification rules will impact IVDs significantly under the IVDR
*Updates to post market surveillance & vigilance requirements
*Economic operators in the supply chain will have some changes to the obligations per the MDR or IVDR

Here are some resources to share with you:

greenlight.guru Webinars on How to Prepare for the New EU Medical Device Regulations (MDR) and How to Prepare for the New EU In Vitro Diagnostics Regulations (IVDR)

For the following 3 BSI White Papers* please select the title from the BSI White Paper webpage.

BSI’s white paper* on the MDR “Planning for implementation of the European Union Medical Devices Regulations – Are you prepared?”

BSI’s white paper* on the IVDR titled “How to prepare for and implement the upcoming IVDR – Dos and don’ts”

BSI’s white paper* on the MDR & IVDR draft text (article updated Oct 2015) titled “UPDATED: The proposed EU regulations for medical and in vitro diagnostic devices”

BSI webpage for white papers* has additional white papers on medical devices / IVDs and quality system requirements.

One of my favorite blogs to follow on the MDR changes is Erik Vollebregt’s Medicaldeviceslegal.com blog.  Erik does an excellent job providing really great information on the subject and keeping his finger on the pulse of the issue at hand.

* Note, through out the BSI White paper series I have had the honor of being on the Advisory Panel to help shape the series and review each of the white papers to provide my years of experience in the medical device industry and the regulatory world.

De-notification of EU Notified Bodies under MDD

The number of EU Notified Bodies (NBs) under the MDD has dropped from about 80 to less than 60 because of the increasingly more stringent NB requirements.  Are you sure your Notified Body scope still covers your products or are they de-notified?  The French Competent Authority (National Agency for Safety of Medicines and Health Product [ANSM]) in late 2016 published an Information Bulletin.

Also, what is going to happen when the Notified Bodies apply for designation under the MDR and when will your Notified Body get approved for the designation under the MDR.  The designation process may take a year or more and some NB’s may not get designated for all they expect or they may decide to shutter their doors, among other scenarios.  So, make sure to read the notifications in the above paragraph and also stay in close contact with your NB to make sure you don’t get left in the cold without a proper NB for your product lines.

If you need help with your EU MDR or IVDR transition planning please email Leo Eisner at Leo at EisnerSafety dot com, or call Leo at +1 (503)-244-6151. He is the Principal Consultant of Eisner Safety Consultants.