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Benjamin M. Zegarelli

Of Counsel

[email protected]

+1.212.692.6261

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Benjamin provides regulatory compliance counsel to global clients developing and marketing FDA-regulated products with the goal of mitigating compliance concerns and obstacles facing product candidates or commercialized products while helping clients achieve commercial success. With a clear focus on medical device compliance matters, Benjamin advises life science and health care industry clients, on the federal and state laws governing the design, production, quality, and commercialization of a breadth of devices, including traditional hardware devices, in vitro diagnostics, and software as a medical device (“SaMD”). He has extensive experience guiding medical device companies through the FDA regulatory process to identify the optimal marketing authorization pathway, assisting with FDA communications and requests, ensuring that submissions to FDA meet regulatory requirements, and helping to establish robust post-market quality systems and compliance controls.

In particular, Benjamin has counseled numerous SaMD developers and software as a service (SaaS) companies, especially those designing software that incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) functionalities, on FDA regulatory strategy, including preparing for pre-submission meetings with FDA, submitting applications for marketing authorization, and responding to agency requests for additional information. He also regularly advises clinical laboratory clients on navigating regulations governing in vitro diagnostic tests, and specifically, the development, distribution, and marketing of laboratory developed tests and home-use specimen collection kits. In addition, Benjamin assists life sciences clients with medical product distribution, advertising, promotion, and labeling compliance, as well as negotiating contractual relationships with suppliers and other contractors.

Benjamin has substantial experience representing medical device companies in responding to significant unfavorable observations from FDA investigators, including regulatory violations cited in Untitled Letters or Warning Letters. He helps companies take strategic actions in navigating the communications process with FDA and implementing appropriate corrective actions to address compliance issues.

In his practice, Benjamin coordinates and performs diligence reviews as part of corporate transactions and securities offerings involving life science and health care companies. He is well versed in the process of developing policy positions for life sciences clients and advocating such positions before FDA and other governmental bodies through written comments and in-person meetings. His practice also includes representing both clinical trial sponsors and clinical sites on regulatory issues in clinical research studies, including compliance with government grant regulations, as well as drafting and negotiating the agreements necessary to perform clinical trials.

Benjamin has co-authored several books titled, Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products and Introduction to the Due Diligence Process, Second Edition, both published by the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society. He has given numerous presentations on current health care industry topics, with titles such as “Digital Health in the Metaverse: Navigating the Interplay Between Healthcare Delivery and Healthcare Laws” and “Clarifying the Clinical Trials Process for Drugs and Biologics.” He has a Master of Science degree in organic chemistry, and he previously worked as a research chemist in the discovery group of a major research-based pharmaceutical company.

Experience

  • Worked with several Mintz clients operating in non-FDA regulated industries to determine how to manufacture and distribute face masks and alcohol-based hand sanitizers in compliance with FDA's enforcement discretion policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, including by providing promotion and labeling advice. 
  • Counseled multiple Mintz clients developing in vitro diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 on compliance with FDA’s enforcement discretion and EUA policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, including assistance with promotion and clinical testing activities.
  • Assisted a pharmacogenetics software company with drafting a pre-submission meeting briefing documents, attended the pre-submission meeting with the client and FDA, and counseled the client on drafting a marketing authorization application that addressed the issues discussed at the pre-submission meeting.
  • Advised numerous Mintz clients developing SaMD or other digital health technologies on selecting the most appropriate regulatory strategy for their products in light of contemporary FDA policies and guidance and avoiding potential regulatory pitfalls relating to software design, quality controls, and pre-market submissions.
  • Counseled multiple Mintz clinical laboratory clients on the regulatory framework governing in vitro diagnostic tests and restrictions on the development, distribution, and commercialization of laboratory developed tests (“LDTs”) and home-use specimen collections kits.
  • Assisted a clinical laboratory with responding to multiple regulatory inquiries from FDA and developing a comprehensive corrective action plan addressing noncompliance allegations relating to home-use specimen collection kits and diagnostic assays.
  • Participates in the Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (“MLR”) Committees that are engaged in promotional review activities on behalf of multiple clients with recently approved new drugs and biologics.
  • Provided extensive assistance to a major medical device manufacturer in responding to regulatory observations from multiple FDA inspections and enforcement actions, including a Warning Letter and a regulatory meeting, including development of a corrective action plan, assisting with the implementation and effectiveness evaluation of corrective and preventive actions, and auditing the company’s complaint handling and MDR reporting systems.
  • Collaborated with ML Strategies to develop a comprehensive strategy to advocate FDA and Congress for development and implementation of regulatory oversight for third-party servicers of medical devices on behalf of a major medical device manufacturer.
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viewpoints

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will schedule a public meeting of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee later this year to discuss study results, real-world data, and other evidence concerning the accuracy and performance of pulse oximeters. The planned meeting is consistent with the agency’s recent efforts to evaluate the need for and options to address transparency and diversity in the design and development of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) based software devices (see our post covering FDA’s Transparency of AI/ML Enabled Medical Devices Workshop) and in clinical trial design. It is unclear whether or how the outcome of the planned meeting on pulse oximeters will affect prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) pulse oximeters currently on the market, but it is possible that the meeting could lead FDA to impose new testing or labeling requirements for pulse oximeters, and perhaps even other devices that use light-based sensors to evaluate certain biometrics.
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Anyone who has spent any time around health care policymaking circles in Washington, D.C. has heard about the intense five-year cycle Congress goes through in order to reauthorize the biggest user fee programs at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Mintz previously published this wonderful explanation of the process complete with an estimated timeline for how this year’s reauthorization was likely to go. As a reminder, the current authorization for FDA’s various human product user fee programs – with the exception of the over-the-counter drug program that was freshly created in 2020 – will expire on September 30, 2022 with the end of the federal government’s fiscal year, unless they are renewed by Congress before that time.
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As the COVID-19 public health emergency drags into its third year, we continue to keep track of efforts by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to combat fraud in the form of fake cures, counterfeit diagnostic tests, and other products claiming to prevent, treat, or detect infection by SARS-CoV-2 that are marketed without required FDA authorization. Our previous posts provided updates on joint and separate efforts by FDA and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) throughout the pandemic to detect and eliminate these illegal products. In this post, we focus on FDA’s recent enforcement activities concerning COVID-19 diagnostic tests and the agency’s increasingly aggressive pursuit of entities offering counterfeit or unauthorized tests.
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In this episode of the Health Law Diagnosed podcast, members of the Mintz Health Law team discuss their health law–focused 2022 New Year’s resolutions and how they’re helping clients and colleagues navigate the continued challenges and opportunities of the current era.
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Snapshot of Another Much-Too-Busy Year for FDA Before 2022 Really Gets Started

January 5, 2022 | Blog | By Joanne Hawana, Benjamin Zegarelli

It is, somewhat amazingly, the beginning of January again. During this time of year we typically publish a series of blog posts that recap the most interesting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) activities over the prior 12 months and consider what the agency is likely to focus on going forward. This year, however, we’re taking a different approach and will be providing more of a birds-eye view of our favorite federal agency as it stands as of the end of 2021. Because there is just too much going on at the administrative, enforcement, and legislative levels to get into the details of everything in one fell swoop. So make sure you’re signed up for Mintz Health Law Viewpoints to receive updates throughout the year on issues as they develop.
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On December 22, 2021, FDA took another step in rolling back enforcement policies implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic by publishing guidance documents describing the regulatory requirements for devices that were authorized under the emergency use authorization process and those under temporary FDA policies implementing specific enforcement discretion during the pandemic once the Public Health Emergency for COVID-19 ends. The Transition Plan Guidances will help device manufacturers prepare for the end of the PHE and continue to commercialize devices necessary for the long-term response to COVID-19.
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About Face: Laboratory-Developed Tests for COVID-19 Now Subject to EUA Requirements

November 19, 2021 | Blog | By Joanne Hawana, Benjamin Zegarelli

For over a year now, there has been speculation about how the Biden Administration would handle the chronically vexing regulatory issues associated with laboratory-developed tests (LDTs). On November 15, 2021 we finally got our answer when the August 2020 policy put in place by the Trump Administration was officially withdrawn. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also released corresponding updates to various guidelines related to the testing response to the ongoing public health emergency. Before summarizing all of these critically important developments, we’ll provide some quick history of what has been going on with LDTs since the pandemic began.
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In the weeks leading up to FDA’s October 14, 2021 Transparency of AI/ML Enabled Medical Devices Workshop (Workshop) we took a brief look at the history of FDA’s regulation of medical device software and the agency’s more recent efforts in regulating digital health. In this post, we will provide an overview of the topics discussed at the Workshop and our impressions of the agency’s likely next steps.
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In our last post, we took a brief look back through history at FDA’s approach to regulating medical device software and found that there is little distinction from the agency’s approach to hardware devices. Recently, however, FDA has announced several digital health initiatives aimed at improving the agency’s resources and policies governing software and data systems (including its own internal data systems) and changing the way the agency handles pre-market reviews of and compliance activities for software as a medical device (SaMD) and SaMD manufacturers. In this post, we will review FDA’s digital health improvement highlights from the past few years and take a quick look at the agenda for the transparency of AI/ML-enabled medical devices workshop scheduled for October 14, 2021.
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In anticipation of FDA’s virtual public workshop on transparency of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)-enabled medical devices scheduled for October 14, 2021, we will be posting a series detailing the history behind FDA’s regulation of software and then reporting our impressions of FDA’s presentations and statements from various attending stakeholders following meeting. In this part, we briefly summarize FDA’s traditional approach to regulating software and how software development quickly revealed the limitations of the original regulatory framework established in the 1976 Medical Device Amendments to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act).
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News & Press

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MDDI interviewed Of Counsel Benjamin Zegarelli on the controversy surrounding the FDA’s proposed regulation to oversee laboratory-developed tests (LDT) and his thoughts on the future of LDTs.
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Of Counsel Benjamin Zegarelli appeared on MDDI’s Let’s Talk Medtech Podcast. Ben provides some important regulatory updates surrounding laboratory-developed tests, artificial intelligence, and software.
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Of Counsel Benjamin Zegarelli was quoted in a Business Insurance article discussing the impact of new FDA guidelines focused on medical cybersecurity.
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Mintz is pleased to announce that 120 firm attorneys have been recognized as leaders by Best Lawyers® in the 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America©.
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Axios interviewed Of Counsel Benjamin Zegarelli about the citizen petition that was filed with the FDA to recall Bamboo's NarxCare.
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NEW YORK – Mintz represented the syndicate of underwriters led by William Blair & Company, L.L.C., in the public offering of 17,242,000 shares of common stock of Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (“Viking”) (Nasdaq: VKTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel therapies for metabolic and endocrine disorders, at an initial offering price of $14.50 per share.
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Mintz Member Joanne Hawana, Senior Director of ML Strategies Aaron Josephson, and Mintz Associate Benjamin Zegarelli co-authored an article published in Law360 discussing the latest actions from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in response to COVID-19.
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MedTechDive reported that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not yet ready to go to Congress to seek new powers for its evolving precertification pilot for software, but it will need new authorities to determine how the experimental path fits into the current regulatory scheme. The article included commentary from Senior Director of ML Strategies Aaron Josephson and Mintz Associate Benjamin Zegarelli.
Bethany Hills and Benjamin Zegarelli co-author this piece reviewing the 21st Century Cures Act that requires the FDA to develop a framework for evaluating evidence in the context of drug regulation and predicting how the FDA will implement the policy.
Three attorneys from Mintz authored the initial installment of a four-part series recapping key government policies, regulations, and enforcement actions from 2016 and discussing their potential impacts on 2017.
Health Law attorney Joanne Hawana and Associate Benjamin Zegarelli authored a Law360 column on how the Senate Appropriations Committee’s approval of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies 2017 appropriations bill sets the stage for GMO legislation. 
FDA and Health Law attorney Joanne Hawana and New York Associate Benjamin Zegarelli authored this Law360 column discussing the growing public support for genetically modified organism and genetic engineering labeling on appropriate food products across the board.
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Events & Speaking

Speaker
Sep
20
2023
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Mar
22
2023

Clarifying the Clinical Trials Process for Drugs and Biologics

ACI's 40th FDA Boot Camp

Virtual Conference

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Panelist
Dec
13
2022

IP Considerations for Medical Device Companies

Boston Bar Association

Online Event

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Nov
10
2022

Regulation of Over-the-Counter (OTC) Drugs

Food and Drug Law Institute

Online Event

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Jan
26
2022
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Aug
19
2021

Law Over Lunch

Food and Drug Law Institute

Online Event

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Apr
21
2020
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Apr
14
2020

FDA in the Time of COVID-19

View the Webinar Recording

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Speaker
Apr
24
2019

16th Annual Medical Device Quality Congress

Servicing & Remanufacturing

Bethesda, MD

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Mar
26
2019

Mount Sinai Innovation Partners Lecture

Protecting and Commercializing Your Innovation – FDA Regulation

New York, NY

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Recognition & Awards

  • Best Lawyers in America "Ones to Watch": Administrative / Regulatory Law (2021-2022); Health Care Law (2021-2024)

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