General Device Studies
A medical device is anything that is not either a drug or a biologic product. Medical devices usually work physically, while pharmaceutical products usually work chemically or biologically. Medical devices can be therapeutic, diagnostic or something else, whereas pharmaceutical products are usually therapeutic. Medical devices can be changed during clinical development and once on the market a newer, improved version may be in development. Thus, the life cycle of a medical device may be much shorter as an updated version may replace what is on the market fairly rapidly; for example, these updates may be a change in the software, a change to make the device more wearable or usable, etc. Medical device studies may be looking at a target population with the condition that is being tested but it also looks for people who do not have the target indication to compare against the normal/healthy population. No matter what condition you do or don’t have, we often will have a simple, non-invasive device study that may be interesting to you.
