FDA to advance regulatory science for medical devices

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has entered into a collaboration with an independent, nonprofit organization Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) to create public-private partnership and advance regulatory science.

Created by LifeScience Alley, MDIC will fund projects, to help simplify the process of medical device design and get access to new technologies, based on the medical device community needs.

FDA commissioner Dr Margaret Hamburg was quoted by CBS News as saying that several small businesses medical device companies don’t have sufficient research budgets to evaluate the products.

"The new group would pull information and ideas from industry, government and academia," Hamburg added.

MDIC will also provide new ideas for developing new tools, models, and methods, which can be utilized by public-private sectors to evaluate new devices.

FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health director Jeffrey Shuren said, "By sharing and leveraging resources, MDIC may help industry to be better equipped to bring safe and effective medical devices to market more quickly and at a lower cost."