Dear Colleagues,

Here is my usual monthly selection of news about developments in medical device regulations in Russia and countries of the Eurasian Economic Union for September 2018.

1. Kazakhstan Changes the Rules for Registration Examination of Medical Devices

At the end of August 2018, order #347 of the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan (link in Russian) came into force and implemented multiple amendments to the rules of examination (expertise) of medicines and medical devices for registration according to the local procedure. 

Order #347 provides updated requirements for the content of the registration dossier, samples for testing, and the procedure for conducting the examination for registration. The expertise process for registration of medical devices consists, as before, of three steps (validation of the registration documents, laboratory testing, and specialised expertise), which take up to 90 working days of real time for I and IIA class devices and up to 160 working days for IIb–III class devices.
In the new edition of the rules, we notice the harmonisation of the major part of the Kazakh and Eurasian algorithms and requirements for assessment.
The new rules also stipulate the possibility of obtaining pre-registration consultancy from the expert organisation.
New requirements have been effective for all medical device submissions for registration and renewals in Kazakhstan since early September 2018.

2. Russia: Guidelines on Software Registration

On 12 September 2018, Russian medical device regulator Roszdravnadzor published methodological recommendations (guidelines) on the procedure for assessment (expertise) of medical software for its registration as a medical device in Russia (link to the document in Russian).
The published document is intended to establish uniform approaches for the registration assessment of software as a  stand-alone medical device across institutions involved in the medical device registration process in Russia.
The guidelines contain a list of criteria for assigning software to medical devices depending on their intended use, principles for classification and determining the risk category, possible criteria for non-compliance during registration assessment, algorithms for assessment of technical documentation, and a list of national standards used for software evaluation.

3. Russia to Chair IMDRF in 2019

Russia will replace China as IMDRF (International Medical Device Regulators Forum) chair in 2019; this was announced during the IMDRF meeting in Beijing, China where  the key topics for the next year were highlighted as Cybersecurity, Premarket Reviews, Personalized Device Regulatory Pathways. The upcoming IMDRF meeting in March 2019 was also announced by the Roszdravnadzor management during the industry meeting in September 2018.

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