Food and Drug Administration, HHS.
Notice.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH or Center) is announcing an invitation for participation in its Experiential Learning Program (ELP). The ELP provides a formal training mechanism for regulatory review staff to visit research, clinical, manufacturing, and health care facilities to observe firsthand how medical devices are designed, developed, and utilized. This training is intended to provide CDRH staff with an opportunity to observe the device development life cycle and provide a better understanding of the medical devices they review and the challenges faced throughout development, testing, manufacturing, and clinical use. The purpose of this document is to invite medical device industry, academia, and health care facilities to participate in this formal training program for FDA's medical device review staff, or to contact CDRH for more information regarding the program.
Submit either an electronic or written request for participation in this program by June 2, 2014. The request should include a description of your facility relative to product areas regulated by CDRH. Please include the Area of Interest (see table 1 or 2) that the site visit will demonstrate to CDRH staff, a contact person, site visit location, length of site visit, proposed dates, and maximum number of CDRH staff that can be accommodated during a site visit. Submitted proposals without this information will not be considered. In addition, please include an agenda outlining the proposed training for the site visit. A sample request and agenda are available on the ELP Web site:
Submit either electronic requests to
Latonya Powell, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Food and Drug Administration, 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Bldg. 66, Rm. 4448, Silver Spring, MD 20993–0002, 301–796–6965, FAX: 301–827–3079,
CDRH launched the ELP Pilot in 2012 and fully implemented the program (78 FR 19711, April 2, 2013) in 2013. The Center is responsible for ensuring the safety and effectiveness of medical devices marketed in the United States. Furthermore, CDRH assures that patients and providers have timely and continued access to high-quality, safe, and effective medical devices and safe radiation-emitting products. In support of this mission, the Center launched various training and development initiatives to enhance performance of its staff involved in regulatory review and in the premarket review process. CDRH is committed to advancing regulatory science; providing industry with predictable, consistent, transparent, and efficient regulatory pathways; and helping to ensure consumer confidence in medical devices marketed in the United States and throughout the world. This program is a collaborative effort to enhance communication and facilitate the premarket review process. Furthermore, CDRH is committed to understanding current industry practices, innovative technologies, and regulatory impacts and needs.
These formal training visits are not a mechanism for FDA to inspect, assess, judge, or perform a regulatory function (i.e., compliance inspection), but rather, are an opportunity to provide the CDRH review staff a better understanding of the products they review. Through this notice, CDRH is formally requesting participation from companies; academia; and clinical facilities, including those that have previously participated in the ELP; other FDA site visit programs; and new interested parties.
In this program, groups of CDRH staff will observe operations of medical device establishments, including research, manufacturing, academia, and health care facilities. The areas of focus and specific areas of interest for visits may include the following:
CDRH will be responsible for all CDRH staff travel expenses associated with the site visits. CDRH cannot provide funds to support the proposed training provided by the applicants to this program. Selection of potential facilities will be based on CDRH's priorities for staff training and resources available to fund this program. In addition to logistical and other resource factors, all sites must have a successful compliance record with FDA or another Agency with which FDA has a memorandum of understanding. If a site visit involves a visit to a separate physical location of another firm under contract to the applicant, that firm must agree to participate in the program and must also have a satisfactory compliance history.
Identify requests for participation with the docket number found in the brackets in the heading of this document. Received requests may be seen in the Division of Dockets Management (see