The new Royal Decree 3/2023 has been published, which establishes the technical-sanitary criteria for the quality of drinking water as well as its control and supply. In this way, the European regulations have been transposed to the national level, with the main goal of improving health protection against the contamination of water intended for human consumption, regardless of its final purpose.
The AEMPS (Spanish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency) has published new guidelines on how conduct clinical investigations with medical devices, in order to adapt them to the EU Regulation 2017/745. The main changes include adjustments regarding the requirements for approval of clinical investigations, modifications to the procedures and deadlines and the documentation required.
The PMPS, in which commercial communications of medical devices were registered, ceased to be operational and was replaced by the new CCPS application of the AEMPS. However, communications made to the PMPS were still valid, although they cannot be managed until they are migrated to the CCPS. Consequently, the AEMPS has set the deadline of 18 July 2023 for the transfer of marketing communications to the new CCPS application, requesting companies to retrieve them by that date, updating their information and submitting them to the necessary review by the AEMPS, prior to their inclusion in CCPS.
The new Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/647 has amended the former Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/686, which in turn complemented Regulation (EU) 2016/429, on the prevention and control of transmissible animal diseases, animal health requirements and traceability of animal reproductive products. The new Regulation complements the rules laid down in the original regulation as regards animal health issues of traceability and certification of movements of captive breeding products of terrestrial animals. Furthermore, the main objective of the regulation is to unify the different regulations applicable on this matter in order to improve their application and to avoid duplication or cross-references.
The AEMPS has published new indications on the adaptation of veterinary medicinal products to the content of Regulation (EU) 2019/6, which establishes a period of five years for veterinary medicinal products authorized under the previous legislation to adapt to the provisions of the new Regulation. For this reason, the Quality Review of Documents has been adapted to version 9.0 on the summaries of product characteristics, package leaflet and labelling of veterinary medicinal products.
In the second episode of our Digital Transformation in the Healthcare Industry series, the Healthcare and Life Sciences team at Baker McKenzie brings us up to date with the current laws and regulations relating to telemedicine and telepharmacy in Thailand and associated issues.
On 18 March 2023, two decrees of the Ministry of Health, dated 26 January 2023, were published in the Official Gazette to implement the advertising provisions laid down in Legislative Decrees No. 137/2022 on medical devices and No. 138/2022 on in vitro diagnostic medical devices.
With decree dated 7 April 2023, the Administrative Court of the Lazio Region rejected the request of a medical device company to shorten the statutory time limit for discussing its petition to suspend the enforcement of payment orders issued by Regions and Autonomous Provinces pursuant to the Italian payback legislation.
In a press release dated 3 April 2023, Confindustria Dispositivi Medici (the Italian Association of Medical Device Companies) announced the submission to the European Commission of a complaint to initiate infringement proceedings against Italy for the breach of the EU legislation on the matter of competition, market access and public procurement resulting from the Italian law governing the payback for medical devices.
On 26 April 2023, the European Commission presented its long-awaited proposal for the review of the pharmaceutical legislation. The main objectives of the proposal include the creation of a Single Market for medicines aimed at ensuring that all patients across the EU have timely and equitable access to safe, effective, and affordable medicines; the offering of an attractive and innovation-friendly framework for research, development, and production of medicines in Europe; the drastic reduction of the administrative burden by speeding up procedures significantly, reducing authorization times for medicines, so they reach patients faster; and the enhancement of the availability of medicines.