An accelerated access pathway for innovative high-risk medical devices under the new European Union Medical Devices and health technology assessment regulations? Analysis and recommendations

ABSTRACT

Introduction

The new European Union (EU) Regulations for medical devices (MDs) and health technology assessment (HTA) are welcome developments that should increase the quality of clinical evidence for MDs and reduce fragmentation in the EU market access process. To fully exploit anticipated benefits, their respective assessment processes should be closely coordinated, particularly for promising, highly innovative MDs. Accelerated approval is worth exploring for certain categories of high-risk MDs to keep the EU regulatory process competitive compared to accelerated MD approval programs elsewhere (e.g. US).

Areas Covered

Problems observed in worldwide accelerated drug and MD regulatory approval programs are reviewed, including greater uncertainty in premarket clinical evidence generation and lack of oversight for post approval evidence requirements. Implications for MD approval, HTA and coverage are explored.

Expert Opinion

Through analysis of two decades of drug and MD accelerated approval programs worldwide, recommendations for an Accelerated Access Pathway for select innovative, high-risk MDs are proposed to fit the EU context, leverage the two new regulations, increase opportunities for Expert Panels to provide timely advice regarding manufacturers’ evidence generation plans along the MD lifecycle (pre, postmarket), and safely speed patient access while promoting increased collaboration among Member States on coverage decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Accelerated approval
• high-risk implantable medical devices
• clinical evidence
• European union
• medical device regulation
• HTA regulation
• early dialogue
• coverage
• surrogate endpoint
• innovative medical devices

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17434440.2023.2192868

Additional information

Funding

The research project was financially supported by the SDA Bocconi School of Management through an unrestricted grant provided by Edwards LifeSciences.