You will be aware from previous posts that industry has been concerned for some time about the amount of work to be done to ensure compliance with the Medical Devices Regulation (MDR), and whether this can be completed by May 2020, the date of application of the Regulation. However, so far, the Commission’s response has been that the current deadline is “realistic and achievable” and that there were no plans to delay implementation.

This week, as an early Christmas present to industry, while there is no delay to the data of application of the MDR, there is some good news: a “corrigendum”, or correction, to the MDR, has been approved by the Parliament that adds certain Class I devices to those devices that benefit from the transitional period under the MDR. This will give manufacturers of certain Class I devices additional time to comply with the Regulations.Continue Reading Delays to the EU Medical Devices Regulations

Software can be considered a medical device under EU law. Although guidance has been issued by the European Commission and national authorities to assist in legal classification, factors or criteria that are considered as relevant in such guidance have not been validated by European or national courts. The recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on legal classification of software medical device is therefore instructive.

The European Court’s first decision on the classification of software in the context of medical devices legislation

On 7 December 2017, the CJEU issued its judgment in Case C-329/16. The CJEU agreed with the Advocate General’s opinion (discussed in our previous Advisory), and held that software can be classified as a medical device under EU law if the software has at least one functionality that allows the use of patient-specific data to assist the physician in prescribing or calculating the dosage for treating the underlying condition. It does not matter whether the software acts directly or indirectly on the human body. The decisive factor is whether the software is specifically intended by the manufacturer to be used for one or more medical objectives specified in Article 1(2) of Directive 93/42/EEC (the Medical Devices Directive), including the diagnosis, prevention, monitoring, treatment or alleviation of disease.Continue Reading Classification of software as a medical device