The European Union’s draft AI Act is an ‘early-mover’ in the arms race towards a global blueprint for AI regulation. In December 2022, the European Council approved a compromise version of the AI Act, and next month, the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on the draft text. But despite its initial promise, the AI Act increasingly resembles the circumstances of its conception – a complex, one-time political compromise between thousands of MEPs with wildly differing views.…
In brief The first ever guidance on social media has been issued by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) to help pharmaceutical companies apply the high standards demanded by the industry’s ABPI Code of Practice to all their online communications channels. The PMCPA Social Media Guidance 2023 has been produced in consultation with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the ABPI, and pharmaceutical companies. It includes advice for companies to help them use…
In brief The MHRA lifted some extra burden from the industry by extending the European Commission Decision Reliance Procedure (ECDRP) by 12 months until 31 December 2023. The ECDRP was introduced following Brexit and is available to medicines approved via the EU centralized procedure. Before 31 December 2023, in situations where a Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) positive opinion has been received, applicants can continue to submit their ECDRP Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) or…
In brief A new EU-level recommendation paper (“Paper”) sets out wide-ranging recommendations for sponsors of decentralized clinical trials (DCTs). The Paper is great news for sponsors facing an array of grey areas and gaps in regulatory guidance around DCTs. It provides guidance on common issues in designing and implementing DCTs: from documenting the delegation of tasks to digital service providers, to obtaining e-consents and how investigators should manage new streams of incoming data. The recommendations…
The UK’s Department of Health and Social Care has announced that the voluntary scheme payment percentage (VPAS) for 2023 will be set at 26.5% of sales for 2023 (representing almost GBP 3.3 billion). This is a further major increase to last year’s VPAS significant rate rise to 15% (around GBP 1.8 billion, rising from GBP 0.6 billion in 2021). VPAS is an agreement between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England and…
In brief In a recent EPSCO meeting, the European Commission (“Commission”) finally confirmed that it intends to extend the transitional period under the Medical Devices Regulation 2017/745 (MDR). In parallel, the Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) has published a Position Paper (2022-18) that offers a supplemental or short-term solution, allowing manufacturers to benefit from an exemption under Article 97 for a temporary period. While this means that the outlook for MDR implementation is more positive, the Commission’s approach is…
On 30 November 2022, the Association of British HealthTech Industries (“ABHI”) hosted its annual conference. The focus was on how the NHS and regulators are developing and implementing legislation, processes and infrastructure to create an innovative environment for HealthTech in the UK to support patients and the health system. We have highlighted our key takeaways below – these will be essential considerations for any organisation involved in HealthTech, particularly connected devices, data analytics, health apps…
In brief On 25 October 2022 leading researchers and executives from some of the world’s pioneering drug and pharmaceutical companies came together at a Financial Times Live Webinar event to discuss “The Power of Clinical Trial Tokenisation”. Tokenisation of healthcare data is likely to be one of the next great innovations for developing life-saving drugs and treatments through the method of privacy-preserving record linkage (PPRL). This allows pharmaceutical companies to “tokenise” and link previously scattered…
In brief The UK’s Health Research Authority (HRA) has unveiled new guidance that signposts the three essential steps to access health and care data for research purposes. The guidance delves into a point that researchers often miss: the common law duty of confidentiality runs in parallel to data privacy laws, and each regime needs to be considered separately to ensure data access requests can stand up to regulatory scrutiny. Step 1: Scoping — what are the data…
In brief The UK government has recently published its roadmap for regulating AI as a medical device (AIaMD) and software as a medical device (SaMD). This will form part of the basis of the upcoming UK Medical Device Regulation reforms in 2024. In light of the operational difficulties faced by the NHS, AIaMD and SaMD are attractive solutions to alleviate pressures on the UK health system. Yet these products are complex and require a high…
