Med Device Online - March 10, 2021 The pandemic year of 2020 presented FDA with many enormous challenges, including how to use emergency authorizations to approve diagnostic tests, personal protective equipment, and therapies, how to conduct remote inspections, and what accommodations should be made for clinical trials disrupted by COVID-19. On top of that, FDA found itself facing an enormous and unprecedented amount of political pressure, with its actions, or lack thereof, potentially altering the presidential election. Yet through it all, the agency continued to largely fulfill its core responsibilities of ensuring compliance and helping to bring new products to market, including, for example, approving by its own reckoning 132 novel medical devices, a significant increase over 2019. Now that we are in 2021, what big developments can we expect from FDA in general and regarding medical devices in particular? This article explores some of the FDA initiatives and activities worth following in 2021.