Humanitarian Use Device and Humanitarian Device Exemption regulatory programs: pros and cons

Abstract

The US FDA established the Humanitarian Use Device (HUD) and Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) program to encourage medical device firms to address rare diseases. Despite being in existence for over a decade, there has only been one peer-reviewed publication examining this field. The objective of this report is to investigate how the HUD/HDE program differs from the standard regulatory system, discuss its potential advantages and disadvantages, and to speculate which humanitarian devices will be brought to market within the next 5 years. A total of 40 semistructured interviews with stakeholders, representing approximately half (n = 20, 49%) of the firms that have successfully obtained HDE-approved products, were performed in order to acquire the primary data for this paper. There appear to be short-term gains and long-term drains associated with launching humanitarian devices to market. This report aims to provide sponsors with information that may allow them to make better decisions during their product development of humanitarian devices and may, hopefully, also play a role in encouraging other sponsors to take the necessary steps forward in helping to find treatments for patients with rare diseases.