Medical products of all kinds have to comply with regulations to satisfy the demand for public health and safety. Medicinal products (drugs) were the first medical products to be regulated in most countries and regulations for medical devices - generally derived from drug regulations - followed. This thesis reviews the development of safety regulation for medical devices from its relatively recent introduction in the 1960s to the present day. The emphasis is on the situation in countries of the European Community but events in these countries are placed in a world-wide context. Landmark events in this process - notably the US Medical Device Amendments of 1976 and the EC Medical Device Directive of 1994 - are analysed and compared. An examination of current regulations in the three major markets for medical devices: Europe, Japan and USA, leads to the identification of quality systems, product standards, effectiveness/performance and post-market controls as key factors in modern regulatory approaches. The emergence of these key factors illustrates the movement towards an engineering, rather than a pharmaceutical, approach to regulation and their place in current and emerging regulations world-wide is discussed. Manufacturers have long pressed for uniformity in national regulations to reduce the time and cost involved in obtaining market approval and their case has been largely accepted by the regulatory authorities. Harmonization in Europe has been achieved as part of the Single Market programme. The last decade has seen remarkable progress towards the further harmonizing of national and regional regulations. The outstanding difficulties, notably controversy over the need for "effectiveness" determination and relative roles of clinical and laboratory testing, are discussed and solutions proposed. The prospects for achieving global harmonization are examined and a possible future global system is described.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:311146 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Higson, Gordon R. |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk/R?func=search-advanced-go&find_code1=WSN&request1=AAIU123856 |
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