Regulators Extend Comment Period on Proposed Overhaul of Device Reclassification System
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is extending by several months the comment period on a proposed rule which would make it easier for the agency to classify and reclassify medical devices in accordance with their perceived risk.
Background
The proposed regulation is required under a 2012 law known as the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA). Section 608 of the law called for FDA to be given the authority to make classification changes through administrative orders, instead of the extremely lengthy process of proposed regulations it now uses under 21 CFR 860.
That order would still need to involve a device classification panel meeting, but would be published as an administrative order in the Federal Register and subject to a limited comment period—not a proposed regulation subject to a lengthy comment period and extensive governmental review.
As pointed out by FDA Law Blog in 2012, existing regulatory pathways for reclassifying devices "have proven so cumbersome that they are rarely used."
"If FDA takes advantage of this new authority to accomplish the same objective by administrative order, there is great potential to improve the efficiency of FDA's regulatory processes," they added.
Proposed Process
In March 2013, FDA released the text of a proposed regulation it said would carry out Section 608 of FDASIA.
The proposed rule focuses much of its energy on regulatory definitions, which determine which category a device should be classified into. Class I devices are low-risk devices; Class II are moderate-risk; and Class III represents the highest category of risk. High-risk devices are understood by FDA to be those which are intended to support or sustain human life, pose an "unreasonable" risk of illness or injury, or are otherwise substantially important to preventing an "impairment of health."
Under the regulation, FDA said it would "identify those potentially high-risk devices for which insufficient information exists to determine that special and general controls would provide reasonable assurances of safety and efficacy (RASE)."
Five categories of high-risk, Class III devices would thus be established:
- devices that present known risks that cannot be controlled
- devices for which the risk-benefit profile is unknown or unfavorable
- devices for which a full review of manufacturing information is necessary
- devices for which premarket review of any change affecting safety or effectiveness is necessary
- combination products
Other portions of the guidance focus on "generic type" devices and their product codes, or procodes for short. Under the new regulation, FDA would be able to group certain procodes together, allowing for a single risk classification to cover multiple types of similar devices.
Comments
The comment period on the proposed rule was originally to be open for 90 days, ending on 24 April 2014.
However, in response to at least two requests for additional time to comment, FDA said it would extend the comment period for several more months. The new comment period is set to end on 22 September 2014, the agency said.