Medical Devices
Complaint Management: Best Practices to Assure Compliance and Customer Retention
Complaint handling is likely one of the more cross-functional parts of your quality system: Customer Service may receive your customer complaints, Sales and Marketing may need to reach out to the customer for additional information, Regulatory Affairs may determine whether the complaint is reportable, QA may perform the root cause investigation, R&D or Manufacturing Engineering may need to be involved i..
Cosmetic Micro Standards, How to Stay in Compliance
What are cosmetics? Paraphrasing the FD&C Act (The Act), Cosmetics are personal care products applied to the human body for the intention of cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering the appearance. The operative word here is “intent”. If your products go beyond cosmetic intentions they may also be drugs as defined under the Act: "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mit..
Critical Planning for Exporting Devices to the EU
Exporting devices to the EU has new EU legal requirements. A device must have a valid CE mark. You must renew your CE mark certification every three years. If you do not, your products cannot be marketed legally in the EU. If your product is not marketed in the U.S. Many U.S. devices are legally marketed in the EU, not the U.S., renewing your CE certification takes planning, a lot of planning. It is n..
Data Governance for Computer Systems Regulated by FDA
Effective and compliant computer system data management is critical to organizations in the pharmaceutical, biologics, vaccines, tobacco, animal health, medical device or other FDA-regulated industry. During the past 30 years, best practices have been developed to ensure computer systems used in these environments can be cost-effectively managed while meeting all aspects of FDA compliance. To take this a st..
De Novo Classification Process
Unlike other countries in the world, the US uses a predicate-based system to classify its medical devices. For devices that have a predicate device in the marketplace, the classification process is quite straightforward. A predicate device is a legally marketed device, called a preamendments device, that was legally marketed prior to May 28, 1976, a device that has been reclassified from Class III to Class ..
Determining a Rational HPLC/UHPLC Selectivity Starting Point
Selectivity in a liquid chromatography (LC) separation is the ability to separate a molecule from other similarly structured compounds, such as conformational, positional, and optical isomers. Columns do this in a variety of ways that depend on the structural differences between the key target molecules. This is most commonly done by tailoring the column’s stationary phase so that the different target molec..
Developing an Effective CAPA Management and Root Cause Analysis System
In order to solve problems, every organization must know how to conduct an effective investigation, identify root causes, and implement workable corrective action in a timely manner. An effective CAPA process requires training internal investigators, who can also coach others in the organization, to employ critical thinking. The process must provide a common model and language within the organization, which..
Deviation Investigation Best Practices: Ensuring Correct Content and Conclusions
Deviation investigations are a very common topic to be reviewed during FDA investigations. Ensuring the firm has robust and complete write-ups of these situations is key to a successful audit. Having inadequate investigations could potentially cause some severe issues for the company and may sometimes result in warning letters, consent decrees or recalls.Learning ObjectivesDiscuss what to do when problems o..
Deviation Management – Investigations to Root Cause Analysis
The fundamental failure identified by regulators evolves from companies not knowing how to conduct investigations, how to identify the root cause, and how to select actions to correct the problems such that they never recur. The key to performing effective investigations is the timely gathering of all the facts necessary to understand what happened, and more importantly, what is wrong before we can begin to..
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning for Computer Systems Regulated by FDA
FDA guidelines are very specific in terms of how computer systems are to be managed, and each company should have a specific strategy and methodology, along with a set of rigorous tactical processes and procedures that prescribe how Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning should be carried out. This is necessary to protect against the onslaught of threats and attacks, both from natural disasters ..
Domestic and Foreign Medical Device Regulatory/Reimbursement Strategies
In general, all commercial medical devices require regulatory approval, for obvious reasons. Of equal importance, is to have a reimbursement pathway in each country where the device sale is targeted. One must get a reimbursement assessment early--while still in the product design phase. One must understand how your device may or may not fit within current payment methodologies such as DRGs, resource-based r..
Equipment Validation, Tracking, Calibration and Preventive Maintenance
FDA and EU regulations require that firms have a program for the calibration and maintenance of test and measurement equipment. The program must include intervals, scheduling, specific procedures, limits of accuracy/precision, and remedial action in the event that the equipment does not meet established requirements. Prior to use, however, this equipment must be validated to make sure it produces a product ..
Essentials of Root Cause Analysis for CAPA
This webinar will help you understand the critical ingredients for conducting an effective root cause analysis. You will learn about FDA expectations, tools and techniques, and tips for conducting and documenting root cause analysis. We will discuss the myths, challenges, and best practices for this critical process. We’ll also cover the essentials of doing a failure investigation.Areas Covered This 90-minu..
EU MDR-Introduction into The European Medical Device Regulation
The EU MDR 745/2017 is a complete game change to the old law of the MDD 93/42/EEC since 1993 with a couple of updates. The time is very short and the number of requirements and required changes is high. The training will show how to conduct a gap-analysis, an action plan and how to be on track until May 2020. Learn what to do into the quality management department and what to do in the regulatory affairs de..
EU Medical Devices Regulation: CE Mark Expiration and the EU Refusal of Your Exports
FDA and the EU have tried to harmonize device regulatory requirements for over 25 years. Major differences between the FDA and the EUincludepremarket authorization (CE Mark), complaint investigations, postmarket surveillance, and reports. The EU’s new Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) incorporates more rigorous regulatory requirements for those areas and in some cases outpaces the FDA’s requirements. The FDA..