How to make sure that an eTMF is compliant to new TMF EMA Guideline?

January 14, 2019

18th December 2018 EMA published a long-awaited “Guideline on the content, management and archiving on the clinical trial master file (paper and/or electronics)”. The release acquired many questions regarding the new reality of TMF, that everyone working in the EU will have to deal with after the document’s effective date 18/06/2019.

How to make sure that an eTMF is compliant to the new TMF EMA Guideline?

Use our checklist(exact quotes from EMA Guideline paper):

  • Electronic TMFs should enable appropriate security and reliability, ensuring that no loss, alteration or corruption of data and documents occur
  • Access to the TMF should be based on a role and permission description that is defined by the sponsor and/or investigator/institution
  • At all times the storage area for the TMF documents (such as paper or electronic media archives and server rooms) should be appropriate to maintain the documents in a manner that they remain complete and legible throughout the trial conduct and the required period of retention and can be made available to the competent authorities of the Member States, upon request
  • The eTMF systems should be validated to demonstrate that the functionality is fit for purpose, with formal procedures in place to manage this process
  • All staff members involved in the conduct of the trial and using the system should receive appropriate training
  • Metadata applied to documents should be formally defined to ensure consistency across all documents
  • The TMF including the audit trail (for eTMF) should be archived appropriately to enable supervision after the clinical trial has ended
  • After archiving any alteration to the content of the trial master file shall be traceable

We’ve recently finished the re-designing process and now our system is not only functional but simply awesome.

Interested? Request a demo via the button on top of the page or drop us an email to bd@flexdatabases.com

Blog

May 21, 2026
Vendor Oversight Under ICH E6(R3): Why Compliance Expectations Are Higher Than Ever

Vendor oversight has always been part of clinical trial compliance, but ICH E6(R3) has significantly raised expectations for sponsors and technology vendors alike. The updated guideline makes one thing very clear: sponsors remain fully responsible for trial quality, patient safety, and data integrity — even when activities are outsourced to external vendors. This includes ensuring […]

Senior Project Manager | eClinical

We are looking for seasoned Senior Project Managers who is ready to take full ownership of high-impact projects. At our core, we value delivery over slides and results over rigid hierarchy.  Our product is a SaaS eClinical platform designed for managing clinical trials and various business processes in the pharmaceutical industry. Our clients include biotech and pharmaceutical companies, as well […]

May 19, 2026
Clinical Trials Management Software: Key Features for CROs

CROs work in a fast-moving and highly complex environment. They manage multiple studies at the same time, often for different sponsors, across different countries, sites, and timelines. Each study comes with its own processes, reporting needs, and regulatory expectations. As this complexity grows, it becomes harder to keep everything aligned using separate tools or spreadsheets […]

Speaker Announcement Anna Petrovskaya at QA Virtual Conerence

Risk management used to live in spreadsheets, scattered documents, and endless review meetings.Not anymore 👀 That’s exactly what our QA Director, Anna Petrovskaya , will be speaking about at the International QA Virtual Conference. Her session,▶️ “Risk Management Automation in the GCP R3 Era,”will explore why traditional, document-based risk management approaches are no longer enough, and […]

Contact us

Get in touch to discuss compliance, implementation, demos, pricing

We are here for all of your questions! Tell us more about yourself and we will organize a tailored live demo to show how you can power up your clinical trials processes with Flex Databases.