About Life Sciences Law
Lexis®+ Life Sciences is an online practical guidance product for contentious and non-contentious lawyers providing advice to and supporting the UK’s Life Sciences sector.
Research and development
Highly regulated, with strict compliance rules, work can be in-house or in collaboration with another entity. Guidance includes practice notes on UK and EU regime for clinical trials and various precedents.
Intellectual property
Patents and supplementary protection certificates are significant to many life sciences businesses. We have practice notes on pharmaceutical patents, biotechnology patents, IP protection for medical devices and more.
Medicinal products
This content includes guidance on marketing authorisations, orphan and paediatric medicines, pharmacovigilance, manufacturing, unlicensed and off-label medicines.
Medical devices
Covering key areas of medical devices regulation including classification, conformity assessments, clinical and performance evaluation as well as post-market surveillance.
Topics We Cover
Latest Life Sciences News
MLex: The EU AI Act places tight obligations on AI models deemed to entail a ‘systemic risk’. Still, recent developments such as the emergence of a...
This week's edition of Life Sciences weekly highlights includes news analysis of the European Commission’s withdrawal of the AI Liability Directive...
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has updated its guidance on biosimilar medicines, focusing on marketing authorisation and post-market variations....
MedTech Europe and the European Coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry (COCIR) have published a joint...
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) has released a report confirming Europe's strong position in scientific research on emerging technologies, such as AI...
Latest Life Sciences Practice Notes
The EU Clinical Trials RegulationThis Practice Note looks at Regulation (EU) 536/2014, the EU Clinical Trials Regulation (CTR), which governs clinical...
Patents and SPCs—EU/UK comparisonBackgroundThis Practice Note provides a high-level summary of key themes of comparison between the UK and EU in...
Execution formalities—administrative receiversThis Practice Note provides practical guidance on proper execution of simple contracts and deeds by...
Sector advertising law and regulationThis Practice Note examines the advertising of goods or services in certain sectors which have sector-specific...
Supply chains under data protection law—arrangements between controllers and processorsThis Practice Note introduces the requirements of the United...
Latest Life Sciences Precedents
Confidentiality agreement—one-way—pro-recipientThis Agreement is made on [date].Parties1[Insert name of party] [of [insert address] OR a company...
IP due diligence questionnaireIntroduction This IP due diligence questionnaire relates to the proposed purchase by [insert buyer name] (the Buyer) of...
Confidentiality agreement—corporate joint ventureThis Agreement is made on [insert day and month] 20[insert year]Parties1[Insert name of first...
Declaration of a director’s interests in an existing transaction or arrangement—general noticeThe Directors[Insert name of company][(Company)][Insert...
Confidentiality agreement—mutualThis Agreement is made on [date]Parties1[insert name of party] [of [insert details ] OR a company incorporated in...
Latest Life Sciences Q&As
Featured Life Sciences content
The regulation of medical devices in the UK
The regulation of medical devices in the UKThis Practice Note provides an overview of the UK regulatory regime for medical devices. It explains the...
Regulation of e-cigarettes
Regulation of e-cigarettes31 December 2020 marked the end of the Brexit implementation period following the UK’s decision to withdraw from the EU. At...
Clinical evaluation and performance evaluation of medical devices in the EU
Clinical evaluation and performance evaluation of medical devices in the EUThis Practice Note describes key changes to the requisite clinical...
Unlicensed medicinal products and off-label use of medicinal products
Unlicensed medicinal products and off-label use of medicinal productsThis Practice Note explores unlicensed medicinal products and the various ways...
Second and subsequent medical use patent claims
Second and subsequent medical use patent claimsBackground to medical use claimsSecond (and subsequent) medical use patent claims are specific to the...
Post-market surveillance of medical devices in the EU
Post-market surveillance of medical devices in the EUPost-market surveillance is the monitoring by manufacturers of medical devices to ensure their...
Intellectual property protection for medical devices
Intellectual property protection for medical devicesChanges to intellectual property (IP) law from 1 January 2021Before discussing how intellectual...
Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021
Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021This Practice Note provides an overview of the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021 (MMDA 2021) which, in...
Introduction to borderline products
Introduction to borderline productsThis Practice Note provides an introduction to the concept of borderline products, how the regulatory status of...
Clinical Research Organisation (CRO) master services agreement
Clinical Research Organisation (CRO) master services agreementDATA PROTECTION NOTICE: Please note that the drafting of clause 7 (Data Protection), in...
Pharmacovigilance
PharmacovigilancePharmacovigilance is the process of collecting and understanding information relating to the adverse effects of medicinal product...
The UK medical devices regime and the impact of the Northern Ireland Protocol
Life Sciences analysis: Peter Rudd-Clarke, partner, and Anna Lundy, associate director, at Osborne Clarke discuss how the medical device industry is...
Medical devices due diligence questionnaire
Medical devices due diligence questionnaireIntroductionThis medical devices regulatory due diligence questionnaire relates to the proposed purchase by...
Life Sciences weekly highlights—11 August 2022
This week's edition of Life Sciences weekly highlights includes analysis of the English court’s jurisdiction to decide COVID-related business...
The regulation of advanced therapy medicinal products
The regulation of advanced therapy medicinal productsThe development of medicine, biomicrobiology and biotechnology has led to the emergence of a...
The experimental use and Bolar-type exemptions to patent infringement
The experimental use and Bolar-type exemptions to patent infringementPatent systems are intended to foster innovation, not to impede it. For this...
Life Sciences weekly highlights—18 August 2022
This week's edition of Life Sciences weekly highlights includes consideration of the arguments put forward against DeepMind, Google’s subsidiary, for...
Pharma and medical device regulation—Colombia—Q&A guide
Pharma and medical device regulation—Colombia—Q&A guideThis Practice Note contains a jurisdiction-specific Q&A guide to pharma and medical device...
Associated legal terms
Active implantable medical device (AIMD)
Generally, active implantable medical devices (AIMDs) are powered devices (other than from the human body or gravity) that are inserted into a patient’s body partially or fully through a natural orifice or by surgical means, and are intended to remain in the patient’s body. For example, coronary pacemakers, cochlear hearing implants, infusion pumps or neurostimulators. The UK and EU legislative definitions differ and are as follows: The UK Medical Devices Regulations 2002 (MDR 2002), SI 2002/618, which implement Directive 90/385/EEC, the Active Implantable Medical Devices Directive in the UK, define AIMD as: ‘…a medical device which— • relies for its functioning on a source of electrical energy or a source of power other than that generated directly by the human body or by gravity; and • is intended to be totally or partially introduced into the human body (whether surgically or medically, including being introduced into a natural orifice) and which is intended to remain in the human body after completion of the surgical or medical procedure during which it is introduced, even if it is intended to administer a medicinal product or incorporates as an integral part a substance which, if used separately, would be a medicinal product.’ Under Regulation (EU) 2017/745, the Medical Devices Regulation (EU MDR), an active device and an implantable device are separately defined: ‘…active device means any device, the operation of which depends on a source of energy other than that generated by the human body for that purpose, or by gravity, and which acts by changing the density of or converting that energy. Devices intended to transmit energy, substances or other elements between an active device and the patient, without any significant change, shall not be deemed to be active devices. Software shall also be deemed to be an active device.’ ‘…implantable device means any device, including those that are partially or wholly absorbed, which is intended: • to be totally introduced into the human body, or • to replace an epithelial surface or the surface of the eye by clinical intervention and which is intended to remain in place after the procedure. Any device intended to be partially introduced into the human body by clinical intervention and intended to remain in place after the procedure for at least 30 days shall also be deemed to be an implantable device.’ Specific requirements for AIMDs are set out in Annex I of the EU MDR at Chapter 2, section 19.
Active pharmaceutical ingredient (API)
Also referred to as a ‘drug substance’, this term refers to any substance or mixture of substances intended to be the biologically active ingredient (or ‘active substance’) contained in a final medicinal product and intended to provide pharmacological activity or other direct effects. It is internationally defined as: ‘…any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used in the manufacture of a drug (medicinal) product and that, when used in the production of a drug, becomes an active ingredient of the drug product. Such substances are intended to furnish pharmacological activity or other direct effect in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease or to affect the structure and function of the body.’ Medicinal products are usually composed of several components: the primary biologically active ingredient(s) which form the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) plus other non-active ingredients known as ‘excipients’. The procedure for optimising and compositing this mixture of components, often producing ‘pharmaceutical intermediate’ byproducts as synthesising the API, and excipients into a final medicinal product is referred to as drug ‘formulation’. APIs are legally required to be registered with drug regulatory authorities (eg MHRA, FDA, EMA) and manufactured in compliance with good manufacturing practice (GMP) regulations and licensed facilities.
Off label
The intentional use of an authorised medicinal product outside the terms of its authorisation'>marketing authorisation (e.g. for a different indication, different dose or in a different patient population). It is considered off-label use of a medical device if the device is used differently from how the manufacturer has instructed.
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