Importance to understand medical device regulations for accelerating clinical translation

Abstract

Clinical translation of medical devices is determined by many factors and is challenging for certain countries or regions as no regulatory body is available to approve related applications. They must rely on application for regulatory bodies of other countries or regions who have independent medical device regulatory systems, while the major markets regulatory process is different. For example, considering the market size and policy orientation, mainland China may be a good option for Hong Kong research organizations. Typically, China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has positioned innovation as a key growth engine and implemented various mechanisms to expedite the registration, including Marketing Authorization Holder policy (MAH), as well as the setting up of the NMPA's Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) Branch Office, type test reform and application for securing innovation channel application. However, there are still many challenges in the transitional process for Hong Kong universities or research institutions, to set up a company in mainland and then prepare many documental files from very beginning. In the future, taking advantage of NMPA reform and seeking cooperation with the NMPA to establish an independent regulatory body in Hong Kong to be recognized by NMPA is recommended as this alone will boost innovation in life sciences and boost in Hong Kong, and have a positive impact on the commercialization of medical devices in mainland China. Such example may also be relevant for many countries or regions who are seeking medical device approval in the designated regulatory systems.