After 23 years, Richard Perkins, our founder and chairman is retiring from eClinical Forum. We are so grateful for all of Richard’s guidance over the years, growing the eCF from a workshop with 13 participants in Nov 1999 to now a global organization with over 2300 active participants from 50 member companies (most member companies participating from several regions around the globe) and 10 global project teams. Richard will remain as a behind-the-scenes consultant during a transition period for the rest of 2023.

We had great fun toasting Richard and telling stories at both Blue Bell and Darmstadt workshops. Thanks you Richard for all you have done for us!! We will certainly miss you!!

The Archiving and Decommission Team is pleased to announce the public release of three white papers:

• "The Decommissioning of Computerised Systems Used in Clinical Trials" 
• "Nature of a Distributed Trial Master File ‐ Practical Aspects"
• "Data Formats Used in Clinical Trials"

These white papers were written by a joint task force from EUCROF and the eClinical Forum, with representatives from other industry associations including ECRIN, the ePRO consortium, Medicines for Europe and the RQA.

The eClinical Forum is happy to announce the release of the "Investigator’s signature on electronic Case Report Forms (eCRFs), PR2.1"

About the Best Practice Document: There is increased scrutiny by regulatory agencies on the collection of investigator’s signatures as evidence of the overall oversight on the eCRF is reported to the sponsor.  eClinical Forum PI Signature Working Group was formed in March 2021 to update the best practice document originally issued in 2017 by identifying best practices that are based on compliance to regulatory requirements and on risks such as reputation, credibility, legal liability of the data being used by the sponsor. 

The Regulatory Expert Group is happy to announce the release of the English translation of the JPMA EDC Management Sheet v2.00.  EDC Management Sheet is a tool by which Japan Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) ensures  the computerized system used in clinical trials comply with relevant regulations and guidelines.This is an unofficial translation and made public for anyone to use. Please be advised that the original Japanese version should be used for any disputes.

The Society for Clinical Data Management (SCDM) and eClinical Forum (eCF) Joint Task Force are pleased to announce the publication of an industry position paper “AUDIT TRAIL REVIEW: A KEY TOOL TO ENSURE DATA INTEGRITY” final version based on Industry Feedback.  With various electronic data capture modalities becoming the norm and the growing regulatory focus on data collection traceability, audit trails which capture the who, what, when, and why of electronic data entry and amendments are a critical tool.  This paper outlines an industry perspective on maximizing the value of implementing the targeted, routine review of these extremely large datasets. It provides recommendations on risk-based use cases for audit trail review (ATR) and the corresponding desired reporting criteria, with suggestions on when to use visualizations and exception report listings to generate key, actionable insights.

The eClinical Forum is happy to announce the public release of a position paper titled “Decentralized TMF Archives and The Decommissioning Of Computerised Systems Used In Clinical Trials”.  This position paper was written by a joint task force from EUCROF and the eClinical Forum, with representatives from other industry associations including ECRIN, the ePRO consortium, Medicines for Europe and the RQA.

ABOUT THE POSITION PAPER: Following the completion of a clinical trial, the essential documents that make up the TMF (Trial Master File) are retained and archived by the sponsor, the investigator and, in some cases, sub-contractors to the sponsor and/or investigator. The position paper highlights 11 key positions: seven positions concerning the archiving of the TMF and four positions concerning the archiving of the electronic data. These positions address areas where regulatory expectations are not always seen as being aligned with industry practices.