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On January 6, 2025, the International Council of Harmonisation’s ICH E6(R3) for Good Clinical Practices (GCP) reached step four of the formal ICH procedure. This means that the ICH E6(R3) draft guidelines, since its release in May of 2023, were submitted to and approved by the ICH Regulatory Members of the ICH Assembly for adoption as an ICH Harmonised Guideline replacing E6(R2).
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On December 30, 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released the draft guidance for industry titled “Protocol Deviations for Clinical Investigations of Drugs, Biological Products, and Devices” to help trial sponsors, investigators, and institutional review boards (IRB) define, identify, and report protocol deviations.
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The Health Research Authority (HRA) announced that England and Wales have begun implementing changes to their clinical trial regulations on June 1st, 2024. These changes include the removal of the requirement for trials to submit annual progress report to their Research Ethics Committee (REC) and the process of submitting safety reports. Scotland and Northern Ireland, following review, also implemented these changes to their regulations making the updates now applicable in all four of the UK nations as of August 1st, 2024.
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On November 6th, 2024, the International Council of Harmonization (ICH) published the draft version of ICH E6(R3) Annex 2, a long awaited update to the good clinical practice (GCP) section of the ICH Harmonized Guidelines.
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In October 2024, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a final guidance: “Electronic Systems, Electronic Records, and Electronic Signatures in Clinical Investigations: Questions and Answers”. It is intended for sponsors, principal investigators, institutional review boards (IRB), contracted research organizations (CRO) (all of which are considered regulated entities) and other interested clinical trial stakeholders that use electronic records and systems.
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Medical Devices in the European Union (EU) are regulated by the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) (Regulation EU 2017/745) which supersedes the previous Medical Devices Directive (MDD)( 93/42/EEC). MDR was implemented on May 26th, 2021 with a three-year transition period. MDR requires that all manufacturers of medium to high-risk medical devices be certified by a notified body.
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On May 6th, 2024 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) released a Request for Information regarding their recently developed draft: Glossary of Terms and Definitions. Innovations in the design and conduct of clinical trials, such as incorporating real-world data to generate real-world evidence, has led novel terms being used to describe these innovations.
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On April 29th, 2024 the US Food and Drug administration (FDA) posted a news release outlining an upcoming virtual listening session June 13th, 2024 from 9:00am–4:00pm ET, on the optimal use of and processes for FDA advisory committees (Ad Com). FDA Ad Coms are intended to provide the agency with advice and recommendations from the public as well as external experts from various backgrounds. They review the safety, effectiveness, and appropriate use of products in FDA regulated research by discussing scientific, technical, and policy issues and voting on proposed future actions.
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On April 15th, 2024 the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the establishment of the CDER Center for Clinical Trial Innovation (C3TI). Clinical trial design and conduct must be held to rigorous standards and policies in order to safeguard the well-being of trial participants and the public. These standards and policies are outlined within the ICH E8(R1) Guideline: General Considerations for Clinical Studies.
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On March 21, 2024 the Centre for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) institutional review board (IRB). The FDA’s inspection resulted in six major observations, all of which occurred during convened IRB meetings.
