Medical Device Safety, Innovation, and Law

Odds are that every one of us will, at some point, be dependent on a medical device to maintain our health or to keep us alive. We’d hope that medical devices, from simple bandages and crutches to over-the-counter pregnancy tests to complex implanted pacemakers and artificial joints, are regulated in ways that ensure the devices we have are safe and effective, and that innovators can develop and market new technologies.

George Horvath (MD, JD), Associate Professor of Law at UC Law SF, studies medical device regulation and innovation, examining how the FDA, private litigation, and other actors work—individually and in concert—to incentivize safety and (ideally) to foster innovation.