Dear Colleagues and Group Members,

This is a monthly update with a selection of the latest news on medical device regulation changes across Russia and the Eurasian Union.

1. Development of Eurasian Medical Device Regulations

On 4 September 2017, the Eurasian Economic Commission published Recommendation No. 17, (link in Russian) ‘On the list of voluntary national standards that […] ensure conformity of a medical device with the Eurasian Essential Requirements for the Safety and Efficiency of Medical Devices’. The document harmonises existing national standards (155 voluntary standards for different types of medical devices and 43 standards for in-vitro devices) of the member states of the Eurasian Union and correlates them with the relevant requirements of the Essential Checklist.

In addition, earlier in September a number of drafts concerning medical device classifiers were published by the Eurasian Commission:

• classifier of changes in the registration dossier of a medical device (link in Russian)
• classifier of documents in the registration dossier of a medical device (link in Russian)
• classifier of medical device area of usage (link in Russian).
  Usage of codes of the above classifiers are expected to be mandatory across several steps of medical device turnover in the Eurasian Union

At the same time, Roszdravnadzor (the Russian medical device regulator) created on its website the section ‘Registration of medical devices within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union’, in which all Eurasian medical device regulations that came into force at that time were summarised.

Despite all published regulations, as of the end of September 2017, applications on Eurasian medical device registration process are still not working.

2. Russian Ministry of Finance Clarified Rules for Medical Device Tax Exemptions

On 11 September 2017, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation published a letter # СД-4-3/1794 (link in Russian) in which it recalled the rules for exemption from value added tax (VAT) when selling medical devices in Russia.

The regulator also confirmed the same VAT exemption for both ‘new’ and ‘old’ registration documents for the period 1 January 2017 to 30 June 2017 (i.e. the period before the amendment of the Russian tax code).

In this context it should be recalled that in February 2017, the Russian government published Resolution #160 (link in Russian) and extended to 1 January 2021 the deadline for the administrative replacement of the ‘old’ Russian medical device registration certificates.

3. Medical Devices Incorporating a Medicinal Substance – Difficulties in Registration in Russia*

The registration of borderline products and medical devices with ancillary medicinal (pharmaceutical) substances is now one of the most pressing regulatory problems in Russia.

Resolution (Order) #11 N of the Russian Ministry of Health (link in Russian), which came into force in March 2017, requires the mandatory registration of all such chemical or pharmaceutical components as pharmaceutical substances in the Russian Federation.

On 25 September 2017, 38 manufacturers and distributors of medical devices in Russia submitted a collective letter to Russian medical device regulator Roszdravnadzor, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in which they drew attention to serious difficulties with, and in some cases the impossibility of, state registration of whole groups of medical devices (for example, dental cements and adhesives, drug-eluting stents, cosmetic fillers…) under new requirements.

The petition contains an analysis of the current regulations of borderline products and medical devices with ancillary medicinal (pharmaceutical) substances, as well as a request to regulators to clarify their position on this issue and correct contradictions in legislation. The issue has received wide coverage in the Russian media.

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* I would like to express my thanks to Medrelic – a Russian consulting company for the registration and certification of medical devices – for kindly providing material and sharing expertise on issues regarding the registration of medical devices incorporating pharmaceutical substances.