The Future of CMC Regulatory Submissions: Streamlining Activities Using Structured Content and Data Management

Recent advancements in data engineering, data science, and secure cloud storage can transform the current state of global Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) regulatory activities to automated online digital processes. Modernizing regulatory activities will facilitate simultaneous global submissions and concurrent collaborative reviews, significantly reducing global licensing timelines and variability in globally registered product details. This article describes advancements made within the pharmaceutical industry from theoretical concepts to utilization of structured content and data in CMC submissions. The term Structured Content and Data Management (SCDM) outlines the end-to-end scientific data lifecycle from capture in source systems, aggregation into a consolidated repository, and transformation into semantically structured blocks with metadata defining relationships between scientific data and business contexts. Automation of regulatory authoring (termed Structured Content Authoring) is feasible because SCDM makes data both human and machine readable. It will offer health authorities access to the digital data beyond the current standard of PDF documents and, for a review process, SCDM would "enrich the effectiveness, efficiency, and consistency of regulatory quality oversight" (Yu et al., 2019). SCDM is a novel solution for content and data management in regulatory submissions and can enable faster access to critical therapies worldwide.