November 24, 2014
In our latest round-up, it was the District Offices turn to chime in on medical device company alleged shortcomings.
As expected, the FDA is shifting more and more of its regulatory focus toward Medical Device Reporting (MDR). In an October 1 letter, the agency’s Baltimore District Office hit Baltimore-based Electronic Development Labs for not having an MDR procedure. Bad idea.
The company may not have recovered very well, either. “The adequacy of your firm’s response dated November 20, 2013, cannot be determined at this time,” FDA’s warning letter said. “Your firm’s response indicates that the development of an MDR procedure was added to a list of action items. In order to determine adequacy, FDA must receive a copy of the MDR procedure for review.” Electronic Develop makes the NervoScope.
The agency also gently encouraged the company to look into eMDR.
As we’ve noted before, FDA eMDR Final Rule requiring manufactures and importers to submit electronic Medical Device Reports (eMDRs) to FDA was published on February 13, 2014. The requirements of this final rule will take effect on August 14, 2015. If a firm is not currently submitting reports electronically, FDA politely encourages it to look into it on FDA’s web page devoted to eMDR.
The FDA demonstrated its ongoing interest in CAPA in an October 7 letter from its Los Angeles Office to Alpha Medical, a maker of angiographic balloon catheters.
After Alpha tried to respond to a September inspection, FDA made it clear the reply needed some work. Example: “CAPA 104 was opened on January 10, 2013, concerning non-conformities regarding balloon extension air leaks. The CAPA report references multiple root causes for these leaks; however, not all of these potential causes were analyzed and investigated.”
The agency went on, “Your records reference that personnel was retrained, but the corrective actions for which they were retrained were not documented. Additionally, this CAPA was closed on February 22, 2013, without documentation that an effectiveness check was performed.
In an October 10 letter from the Cincinnati District Office, local regulators challenged West Lake Enterprises, maker of medical gas pressure regulators and suction regulators, with CAPA and other violations, including installation that’s not in conformity with the Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) requirements of the Quality System (QS) regulation. The company responded, and the FDA came back with additional questions.
The Denver District Office joined in with an October 28 letter to Xanacare Technologies, maker of SimulCare II, a therapeutic lamp/nerve stimulator/massager. The agency hit them for several issues, including problematic design control, device history records (DHR), and complaint handling. As of late October, the agency said it had not received a response from Xanacare.
