Unseen Regulatory and Intellectual Property Impact of Genus

Regulatory history was made on 9 August 2021 in a Federal Register notice (Docket No: FDA-2021-N-0843) announcing that in accordance with the Genus decision, FDA intends to regulate products that meet both drug and device definition as medical devices, except where the statute indicates that Congress intended a different classification.

What’s more, FDA also plans to review all FDA-approved imaging agents and potentially reclassify them as drugs or devices according to whether they achieve their primary intended purpose through chemical action or are dependent on being metabolized for the achievement of their primary intended purpose.  This means that some currently approved imaging agents regulated as drugs will transition to be regulated as medical devices!