The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) have committed to working together on efforts to help accelerate American medical device innovation.
The organizations will work toward developing off-the-shelf testing tools that will provide innovators with straightforward, reproducible, and cost-effective testing methods throughout the product development cycle. Efforts will initially focus on interoperable systems that can exchange health information automatically for the diagnosis and treatment of patients.
As part of the collaboration, Veterans Affairs (VA) Ventures Innovation Institute in Seattle, WA, will host up to 12 FDA staff. FDA staff will focus on regulatory science -- the science of evaluating the benefits and risks of new products -- while VA staff will provide clinical context for test development and provide hands-on training and other immersive experiences for innovators wishing to use the tools.
