Dear colleagues and group members,

Here is May’s monthly newsletter, showing a selection of medical devices and regulatory highlights for Russia and the Eurasian Union.

1. Developments in Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) Medical Device Regulation

“On May 6, 2017, the main regulation acts of the EAEU, ensuring the functioning of the common markets for medicines and medicines, are coming into force” –this statement was made  by the Minister of the Eurasian Economic Commission, Valery Koreshkov, at the very beginning of May. Thus, ten days after the ratification of the protocol on Armenia’s accession by the Kyrgyz Republic, most of the ‘‘second level’’ documents regulating the circulation of medical devices in the single market of the Eurasian Economic Union came into operation. The thirteenth and last ‘‘second level’’ document on the requirements for the quality management system (QMS) has not yet been adopted or entered into force. However, this is not likely to be an obstacle to the launch of a single medical device market.

Later, on 24 May 2017, the Eurasian Commission published the first draft of “third-level” regulations – recommendations on a list of applicable standards to ensure compliance with essential principles of safety and efficacy of medical devices in the EAEU (link in Russian). The document contains a list of 43 standards (mostly Russian GOSTs and Belorussian STBs) which may be voluntarily used by manufacturers and testing laboratories of member states to demonstrate conformity with new Eurasian medical device regulations. The Eurasian Commission recommends that member states implement the list gradually, within six months from the day of its official publication.

In addition to this, Russian healthcare regulator Roszdravnadzor announced an upcoming one day seminar and webcast on the registration of medical devices in accordance with the changes in the legislation of the EAEC. This will take place in Moscow on 8 June 2017. The agenda of the seminar also covers topics relating to clinical trials, vigilance requirements and implementation quality management systems according to EAEU requirements.

2. Medical Device Nomenclature in Kazakhstan

On 22 May 2017, the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan approved new nomenclature of medical devices harmonised with the Global Medical Device Nomenclature (GMDN) together with the Methodological Guidelines for the Formation and Maintenance of the Nomenclature of Medical Devices of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Nomenclature of medical devices may be used for registration, traceability, public procurement and post-registration control for medical devices. New medical device nomenclature is available online (link in Russian) and contains a list of medical devices, including their names, relevant codes and descriptions of their types, as well as classification characteristics used for search and classification.

3. Russian Regulator Updates Checklist for Control Inspections

At the end of April 2017, Russian healthcare regulator Roszdravnadzor published its order #4043 (link in Russian) and updated the “list of regulations containing mandatory requirements, the observance of which is assessed in the course of state control”. The abovementioned list replaced the previous version published by the regulator in November 2016 (Order #12848). Section three of the published list is devoted to state control of medical devices and summarises the full list of applicable regulations which is assessed by Roszdravnadzor during audits and inspections of manufacturers of medical devices and medical facilities in Russia.

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The objective of this blog is to clarify Russian and Eurasian regulations. Please post your comments and questions here or on the Russian medical device regulations LinkedIn group. You can also follow me on Twitter @MedDevRus.