Meeting Details:

On December 4, 2018, the committee will discuss, make recommendations, and vote on information regarding the premarket application (PMA) for the OPTIMIZER SMART Implantable Pulse Generator device, sponsored by Impulse Dynamics (USA), Inc. This first-of-a-kind device is indicated to provide cardiac contractility modulation for class III heart failure patients who are not responding to optimal medical therapy. On December 5, 2018, the committee will discuss and make recommendations regarding issues relating to the emergence of medical devices, which aim to treat hypertension. Currently, clinical studies to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of these devices are progressing. FDA requests panel input regarding the potential indications and labeling for devices intended to treat hypertension and optimal study designs needed to evaluate the potential benefits and risks while considering issues such as medication compliance, patient perspective, and appropriate study controls.

Meeting Details:

On November 15, 2018, the Committee will discuss and make recommendations on the topic “Connected and Empowered Patients: e-Platforms Potentially Expanding the Definition of Scientific Evidence.” The recommendations will address how FDA can leverage patient-driven platforms, such as social media and registries, to better engage patients and consumers as empowered partners in the work of protecting public health and promoting responsible innovation. Social media and other web platform enablers are facilitating the growth of virtual patient communities. Increasingly, patients and health care consumers are using these platforms to share their health experiences and seek information from other patients and consumers, rather than their health care providers alone. Novel approaches and methodologies are being used to tap into some of these platforms as potentially rich sources of patient-generated health data, which could be used as relevant and reliable real-world evidence. This meeting will help advance FDA’s objective to assure the needs, experiences, and perspectives of patients are included as part of FDA’s deliberations involving the regulation of medical devices and their use by patients. For this meeting, FDA is seeking input from the Committee and the public on whether and how FDA can harness the emerging potential of these patient platforms to better engage patients and consumers as empowered partners in the work of protecting public health and promoting responsible innovation. In addition, FDA is seeking recommendations from the Committee on ways to leverage these platforms to disseminate as well as potentially collect and evaluate health information to and from patients and consumers.

Meeting Details:

The committee will discuss the assessment of opioid analgesic sparing outcomes in clinical trials of acute pain. The committee will be asked to comment on the trial design and endpoints of these studies and how to determine the clinical relevance of the results.