FDA Announces Plan to Get New Medical Devices to Market Faster

Public-private partnership with members of industry and academia

The FDA has announced a new nonprofit private-public partnership aimed at helping medical device companies get their products to market faster.

The Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC), which consists of partners from industry, academia, and government, is the first of its kind in the medical device arena, said FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, MD, during a telebriefing on Monday.

MDIC's initial objective will be to create scientific tools to help develop and evaluate the safety and effectiveness of new medical devices, and to do so while reducing the cost and time it takes for a device to come to market, said Jeffrey Shuren, MD, JD, director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH).