This posts discusses BSI’s article on the status of the draft ISO 13485:201X standard.  

Recently BSI published an e-newsletter and in it was an excellent article explaining the status of the next draft revision of ISO 13485 and some of the details of the draft standard. The development of this standard project is being managed under the ISO Technical Committee 210, Working Group 1.  The Committee Draft (CD) received over 500 comments and from that the committee published the Draft International Standard (DIS) on 20 Feb 2014.  So, now we are within the required 5 month voting period for comments with the period closing on 20 July 2014.  Note, that some National Committees may ask for feedback up to a couple weeks or more earlier than the 20 July 2014 deadline so get your comments in fast to your National Committee wherever in the world you are.  For most National Committees you or your company have to be members of that committee to submit comments. Note, that since this is at the DIS stage of the process these comments, unless really minor typos, typically will not have an impact on the 3rd revision of the standard but will probably have to wait til the next revision cycle of the standard as at DIS you can’t make any technical changes to the standard. This stage is fairly late in the process and so you aren’t typically allowed to make these types of changes based on how the process is structured in the ISO and IEC standards development process.

When is it anticipated this standard will be released?

The article goes on to say if things run smoothly you may be able to see the actual published standard by late 1st quarter 2015 or early 2nd quarter 2015.  It is expected that there would be some type of transition period established for this standard and this may be impacted by things like the publication of ISO 9001 which this standard relies on, supporting the existing European Medical device Directives and the upcoming Medical Devices Regulations.

The article mentions that you can view a copy of the draft on the BSI National Standards Body website or you can buy a copy as noted in the article. 

If you need additional support in the standards development process for a standard email Leo Eisner at Leo@EisnerSafety.com, or call Leo at +1-(503)-244-6151 as he is a Convener for an IEC/ISO, EN and ANSI/AAMI standard for IEC/ISO 80601-2-58 on Lens Removal and Vitrectomy Equipment. Leo is the Principal Consultant of Eisner Safety Consultants (bit.ly/EisnerSafetyConsultants).

First a closing statement press release from the GHTF president was issued recently (dated Nov 2012) and on the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) webpage for the Archived GHTF documents there is a statement at the top of that page stating:

• “Important! The organisation GHTF no longer exists, and has been permanently replaced by the IMDRF. All material appearing on this page and the pages within has been moved here from the old GHTF site for preservation, and is no longer current. It is historic information and should not be acted upon.”

Another point to note is that the last set of documents from the GHTF were issued on 2 Nov 2012 and the IMDRF website in the last couple days seems to have been totally updated and reorganized in an easy to use format that will make it easy for the public to view this valuable resource and to stay up to date on the happenings of this organization.   Hopefully,  in the next decade, or sooner, the IMDRF will begin the process of Harmonizing areas of the international medical device regulatory arena so medical device manufacturers won’t have to deal with varying regulations through out the world.

On the Archived GHTF webpage it also states that they have brought all of the current and archived GHTF documents over to the IMDRF website.  Note, that the GHTF website is still up but it is not clear what will happen to it or when it will be taken down.

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More about the IMDRF: Straight from the IMDRF website the following gives you some information about the organization.  If you have furhter questions about the organization please contact the IMDRF secretariat at imdrf.secretariat@tga.gov.au

IMDRF is a voluntary group of medical device regulators from around the world who have come together to build on the strong foundational work of the Global Harmonization Task Force on Medical Devices (GHTF) and aims to accelerate international medical device regulatory harmonization and convergence.

IMDRF was born in October 2011, when representatives from the medical device regulatory authorities of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, European Union, Japan and the United States, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) met in Ottawa to address the establishment and operation of this new Forum. A copy of the outcome statement from this meeting is available from the Meetings page.

Further information about the work and operations of IMDRF is available in its Terms of Reference (Note, the last page of this document has an organizational chart showing the roles and inte-relations of these roles).

On the About Us webpage  they go on to describe the different roles and responsibilities within the IMDRF.   The functions described are the IMDRF Management Committee; the Management Committee Members (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe (the EU), Japan, and the USA);  Official Observers (World Health Organization {WHO}); Affiliate Organizations; and Working Groups.

RAPS Regulatory Focus Article posted 30 Oct 2013 on the subject is interesting and provides some additional background and perspective.

“The purpose of this questionnaire is to determine the need for modification or updating of the ISO 13485:2003 requirements standard and the ISO/TR 14969:2004 guidance document.”

From what the full text on LinkedIn says ISO 13485 will be getting an update either way but this way you can provide feedback, to the authors of the standard, as to what you think and maybe that can have some impact on the development of the next edition of the standard.  If you are a medical device company and interested in responding to this survey you can access it by clicking here.  It asks some really good questions and hopefully your feedback will help the development  of the standard.

Thx Marcelo for posting this survey.