Critical Factors and Economic Methods for Regulatory Impact Assessment in the Medical Device Industry

The regulatory area is one that restricts human behaviour and opportunities, but it also allows the prevention of loss of property, health, or even life in various fields. Regulations provide the market with public confidence, which is extremely important in the field of innovative medical devices. The aim of this article is to analyse critical factors and economic methods for regulatory impact assessment in the medical device industry, to focus on the finances, processes, or innovation activity of organisations operating in the medical device sector.

The paper consists of a scoping review according to the PRISMA methodology of the available literature in Web of Science and Scopus database, whereby combing the keywords "regulation" AND "innovation" AND "medical device" AND "economic impact," we obtained a set of 156 results in the form of English-written articles. The output was then limited to the period between 2011 and 2020. Finally, 23 papers were used based on the exclusion and inclusion criteria.

The resulting challenges of the identified problems in particular are the amount of high-quality data available at an appropriate cost and the availability of a flexible notified body. There are also challenges specific to the situation, such as demands on the safety of medical devices for children. From a public expectations point of view, there is a continuing need to maintain the urgency of the balance between available innovation and safety.

As for the methods of economic assessment in general, or methods for assessing the economic impact of regulations in particular, cost-effectiveness analysis is the most commonly used method for research and development, while internal rate of return is frequently used for the producers, and budget impact analysis is typically used for healthcare service providers. A non-financial indicator that is often discussed is the time demands associated with meeting compliance requirements. The time-to-market indicator is also often mentioned. Economic and financial topics are not discussed in depth, as the reviewed articles simply mention the generally high costs attendant on complying with regulations and obtaining certificates.