International Clinical Trial Liability for a Medical Device FIH

General information, not insurance, legal, or regulatory advice. Confirm current ethics / national device authority ethics, import, and coverage rules with qualified advisers and a licensed broker. We do not invent premiums, limits, or carrier rates on this page. We do not claim a named carrier as a signed bioaccess® partner here. No patient data. […]

General information, not insurance, legal, or regulatory advice. Confirm current ethics / national device authority ethics, import, and coverage rules with qualified advisers and a licensed broker. We do not invent premiums, limits, or carrier rates on this page. We do not claim a named carrier as a signed bioaccess® partner here. No patient data. No unpublished client. Always bioaccess®.

If you searched international clinical trial liability medical device, investigational device trial insurance OUS, you were looking for someone who would write international clinical-trial coverage for an investigational device. bioaccess® is a first-in-human medical-device CRO. We are not an insurance carrier. We do not underwrite policies. We do not sell premiums. We do not quote a binder. OUS and Latin American device trials still need trial-specific liability — local admitted paper, a master with local certificates, or both. We run the trial under ISO 14155. We can introduce a specialty carrier. That introduction is not a signed partnership on this page, and it is not a quote.

Drug-trial GL language is not a device FIH form. An investigational implant, catheter, or diagnostic that has never been in a human is a different risk sentence than a marketed pill. Carriers who write “clinical trials” still have to read the IB.

This page is not a clone of Clinical Trial Insurance in Latin America: What Sponsors Need to Know Before Study Start. That hub is the country-snapshot checklist (territory, named insureds, language, runoff). This page is the device-specific trial liability (not drug GL) intercept. Distinct slug. Distinct title. Same operator: the CRO runs the trial; a carrier writes the paper.

The CRO is not the carrier

Founders type “buy clinical trial insurance” and land on CROs, brokers, and hospital MSAs in the same result set. Those are three jobs:

  • Carrier. Underwrites participant injury, medical expenses for trial-related events, defense, and site/investigator indemnification — if the form matches the protocol. A hallway conversation is not a binder.
  • Broker. Places the form, translations, additional-insured endorsements, and territory wording. Licensed where the paper has to sit.
  • CRO. Protocol, IB, ICF, ethics/ethics / national device authority packet, importer of record for clinical trial devices in Latin America, ISO 14155 monitoring, SAE clock, TMF, and the 21 CFR 812.28 narrative. See OUS FIH and FDA IDE. Eligibility of foreign data is not FDA clearance.

Mixing those jobs is how a startup buys a U.S. product-liability rider, emails a PDF to an ethics committee, and gets a resubmission. Product liability is not clinical-trial liability. A site’s institutional policy is not the sponsor’s trial form.

Device FIH is not a protocol footnote on a drug policy

A first-in-human medical device study asks a participant to accept an investigational product that may stay in the body, may require a procedure, and may generate SAE clocks the FDA will later read under 21 CFR 812.28. The liability form has to follow that protocol: procedure-related injury, device malfunction language, explant or revision costs if the protocol requires them, and follow-up windows that are often longer than a three-visit drug trial. We will not invent a device-class tariff here. The carrier reads the IB. The CRO writes the IB.

OUS is a territory problem, not a slogan

“International” on a U.S. certificate often means “we have a London switchboard.” Ethics in Panama, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, or Mexico wants the country named. If the protocol later adds a second Latin American country, the endorsement has to move with it. bioaccess® picks geography for the device. The paper follows the protocol. A device startup that buys a U.S.-territory clinical-trial endorsement and then opens a Colombian site has bought the wrong object.

What ethics and ethics / national device authority actually ask for

Use clinical-trials-panama. Panama’s Ministry of Health (MINSA), through the Dirección Nacional de Farmacia y Drogas, is the national file. Ethics review runs through institutional bioethics committees registered with the Comité Nacional de Bioética de la Investigación (CNBI). Published ethics typically 3–5 weeks; with bioaccess® coordination, protocol submission to first-patient enrollment averages 6–8 weeks on that hub. Per-patient costs there: $12,000–$22,000 in U.S. dollars. A hallway conversation at this hospital is not MINSA clearance. Use clinical-trials-chile. Instituto de Salud Pública (ISP) authorizes studies and investigational-device import. Live Chile blogs already put a typical ISP review in a band of about 30 business days. Commercial ISP registration in a 30–90 day band is a different file — do not put trial authorization and commercial registro on one Gantt labeled “Chile.” An Ethical-Scientific Committee under Law 20.120 still has to sit. We will not invent PAHO/WHO Level 4 standing for ISP on this page.

Insurance documentation is usually in the ethics / ethics / national device authority packet, not a post-approval formality. Typical asks (confirm with the reviewing body — we will not invent a pan-regional limit):

  • Territory that names every country on the protocol.
  • Site and principal investigator as additional insureds when the committee requires it.
  • Policy period through last-patient last-visit plus the protocol follow-up window.
  • Spanish (or Portuguese) certificate or notarized summary when the committee asks for it.
  • Claims-notice language that can sit next to the SAE clock, not against it.

We will not invent a per-participant dollar figure on this page. Individual ethics committees set thresholds. Ask the carrier and the CRO together, before the packet goes in.

Local policy vs controlled master

For a device FIH, local admitted paper is often what the ethics clerk files. A controlled master can sit behind it if the carrier will issue certificates in the right language with the PI and site named. Do not assume a master written for a 40-site drug program will print a one-site Panama device certificate next week. Ask. Get it in writing.

A “controlled master” that never issues a local certificate is a slide, not a submission. A local-only policy that cannot travel to a second Latin American country is a one-country trap. The operator chooses geography for the device; the paper has to follow the protocol, not the other way around.

What bioaccess® still owns after you have a quote

  1. Regulatory-fit, not tourism. If the indication later needs Colombia, Brazil, or Mexico, the operator already runs those files. The carrier has to name them. bioaccess® still runs clinical trials in Colombia.
  2. Protocol, IB, ICF, and the ethics / ethics / national device authority packet with insurance documents in the same stack — not a parallel founder email.
  3. Importer of record and device accountability. A binder does not import the investigational product.
  4. Site activation: contracts, training, investigational product, EDC, monitoring plan. A site MSA that “includes insurance” is still not ISO 14155 monitoring.
  5. Introducing a specialty carrier when the founder does not already have admitted paper. Introduction is not a signed partnership on this page. We do not invent rates.

The firm was founded in 2010. Public device case studies (ReGelTec, Axoft, Newrotex, enVVeno, Avantec Vascular / Sangria™ as already published) show FIH execution with import and insurance as workstreams — not as bioaccess® underwriting. We will not invent a premium from those pages.

Colombia is still on the map

A site-name search sometimes arrives with a stale story that bioaccess® “left Colombia.” That is false. bioaccess® still runs clinical trials in Colombia. Always bioaccess® — local entity and office, Miami headquarters, INVIMA clocks in-country. The country page’s published comparison: Panama ethics 3–5 weeks vs. Colombia 4–6 weeks; per-patient $12K–$22K vs. $15K–$25K as published on clinical-trials-panama. We pick the country the device needs. The founder podcast is Global Trial Accelerators™.

A Bogotá or Floridablanca ethics packet still wants financial responsibility for participant injury. That does not flip the public line. bioaccess® still runs clinical trials in Colombia. We pick the country the device needs.

Frequently asked questions

Does bioaccess® sell clinical trial insurance?

No. We are the FIH CRO. We can introduce a carrier. We do not underwrite. We do not bind. We do not invent a rate card on this page.

Is this the same article as the LATAM insurance hub?

No. The hub is Clinical Trial Insurance in Latin America: What Sponsors Need to Know Before Study Start. This page is device-specific trial liability (not drug GL). Do not treat them as clones.

Can a U.S. product-liability policy cover a LATAM device FIH?

Only if the territory clause and the trial-liability form actually name the countries and the investigational activity. Many U.S. GL/PL policies exclude OUS research. Get it in writing from the carrier. A verbal “we’re global” is not an ethics exhibit.

Did bioaccess® underwrite the Avantec / Sangria™ $10M policy mentioned on public pages?

No. Public llms.txt copy says bioaccess® ran FIH execution that included placing a $10M clinical-trial insurance policy as an operational workstream. That is CRO coordination, not underwriting. It is not a SKU. It is not a rate we invent here.

Next step

If the search that brought you here was international clinical trial liability medical device, start as the operator: contact bioaccess® or book from First-in-Human CRO. Device-import sibling (do not clone): importer of record for clinical trial devices in Latin America.

Julio G. Martinez-Clark, CEO · bioaccess®

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