Dear colleagues and group members,

Welcome to my monthly newsletter with the most important regulatory updates on medical devices in Russia for November 2017.

1. Russian medical device expert organisations are starting pre-submission consultancy
   In November 2017, both Russian expert organisations involved in the registration process announced the start of pre-submission consultations for medical device manufacturers. The expert organisations published information on consultancy procedures, application forms, contracts, information on prices, and required and recommended documents on their websites:
   – Consultations from VNIIMT (ВНИИМТ) expert organization – link in Russian;
   – Consultations from CMIKEE (ЦМИКЭЭ) expert organization – link in Russian;

   According to Roszdravnadzor Regulation 6478 (link in Russian) published in July and enforced in September 2017, the scope of the consultations are: development of a medical device and necessary documentation and testing for registration and re-registration for particular devices, specific aspects of the Russian registration process and requirements, classification of medical devices, and determination if a product meets the definition of a medical device, according to Russian regulations.

2. Evolution of restrictions on polyvinyl chloride consumables
   On 1 November 2017, the Russian Ministry of Health published a letter (link in Russian) with information on weighted average prices for disposable medical devices from the government list of foreign disposables made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics, whose admission to public procurement was restricted by Resolution # 968.
   It should be recalled that Resolution No. 967 (link in Russian) and Resolution No. 968 (link in Russian) came into force in August 2017, and extended the list of medical products restricted from participation in state procurements, (link to up-to-date version in Russian) with particular reference to medical devices containing PVC implementing criteria for its manufacturers, and the new scheme of state procurement for such products.
   The national register for manufacturers of PVC consumables that met the criteria is published by the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade and at the end of November contains one company.

   3. Medical software in telemedicine technologies

   On 3 November 2017, the Russian Ministry of Health published draft regulations on providing medical care using telemedicine technologies (link in Russian). Amongst other matters, the document contains a requirement for mandatory registration of special medical software that is ‘designed for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and medical rehabilitation of diseases, monitoring the state of the human body and used as a part of information systems’ as a medical device.

   It should be noted that, the Russian medical device regulator Roszdravnadzor has emphasised several times during the past years that medical software should be considered a type of medical device and must therefore pass the mandatory registration process