title: Electronic common technical document
text: The electronic common technical document (eCTD) is an interface and international specification for the pharmaceutical industry to agency transfer of regulatory information.
  The specification is based on the Common Technical Document (CTD) format and was developed by the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) Multidisciplinary Group 2 Expert Working Group (ICH M2 EWG).
  
  History
  Version 2.0 of eCTD – an upgrade over the original CTD – was finalized on February 12, 2002, and version 3.0 was finalized on October 8 of the same year. , the most current version is 3.2.2, released on July 16, 2008.
  
  A Draft Implementation Guide for version 4.0 of eCTD was released in August 2012. However, work stalled on the project. An additional Draft Implementation Guide was released in February 2015 Draft specifications and guides were issued in April 2016 by the ICH and the FDA, followed by a May 13 ICH "teleconference to discuss the guidance and any questions and clarifications needed."
  
  U.S.
  On May 5, 2015, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration published a final, binding guidance document requiring certain submissions in electronic (eCTD) format within 24 months. The projected date for mandatory electronic submissions is May 5, 2017 for New Drug Applications (NDAs), Biologic License Applications (BLAs), Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) and Drug Master Files (DMFs).
  
  Canada
  Health Canada was a sponsor and an early adopter of the eCTD workflow especially for its Health Products and Food Branch regulator, but as of April 2015 had not yet fully automated it.
  
  E.U.
  The E.U. and its European Medicines Agency began accepting eCTD submissions in 2003. In February 2015, the "EMA announced it would no longer accept paper application forms for products applying to the centralized procedure beginning 1 July 2015." The EMA verified on that date that it would no longer accept "human and veterinary centralised procedure applications" and that all electronic application forms would have to be eCTD by January 2016.
  
  China 
  In November 2017, China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) publishes draft eCTD structure for drug registration for public consultations. This is a big transition for China to move from paper submission to eCTD submissions.
  
  Japan 
  The Japan PhMDA has been eCTD compliant at least since December 2017.
  
  Governing specifications
  An eCTD submission's structure is largely defined by the primary standard created by the ICH, the Electronic Common Technical Document Specification. However, additional specifications may be applied in national and continental contexts. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) layers additional specifications onto its requirements for eCTD submissions, including PDF, transmission, file format, and supportive file specifications. In the European Union, the European Medicines Agency's EU Module 1 specification as well as other QA documents lay out additional requirements for eCTD submissions.
  
  Pharmaceutical point of view 
  
  The eCTD has five modules:
  
   Administrative information and prescribing information.
   Common technical document summaries.
   Quality.
   Nonclinical study reports.
   Clinical study reports
  
  A full table of contents could be quite large.
  
  There are two categories of modules:
  
   Regional module: 1 (different for each region; i.e., country)
   Common modules: 2–5 (common to all the regions)
  
  The CTD defines the content only of the common modules. The contents of the Regional Module 1 are defined by each of the ICH regions (USA, Europe and Japan).
  
  IT point of view
  
  eCTD (data structure) 
  
  The eCTD is a message specification for the transfer of files and metadata from a submitter to a receiver. The primary technical components are:
  
   A high level folder structure (required)
   An XML "backbone" file that provides metadata about content files and lifecycle instructions for the receiving system
   An optional lower level folder structure (recommended folder names are provided in Appendix 4 of the eCTD specification)
   Associated document type definitions (DTDs) and stylesheets.
  
  Each submission message constitutes one "sequence". A cumulative eCTD consists of one or more sequences. While a single sequence may be viewed with web browser and the ICH stylesheet provided, viewing a cumulative eCTD requires specialized eCTD viewers.
  
  The top part of the directory structure is as follows:
  ctd-123456/0000/index.xml
  ctd-123456/0000/index-md5.txt
  ctd-123456/0000/m1
  ctd-123456/0000/m2
  ctd-123456/0000/m3
  ctd-123456/0000/m4
  ctd-123456/0000/m5
  ctd-123456/0000/util
  
  The string ctd-123456/0000 is just an example.
  
  Backbone (header) 
  This is the file index.xml in the submission sequence number folder.
  For example:
  ctd-123456/0000/index.xml
  
  The purpose of this file is twofold:
  
   Manage meta-data for the entire submission
   Constitute a comprehensive table of contents and provide corresponding navigation aid.
  
  Stylesheets 
  Stylesheets that support the presentation and navigation should be included. They must be placed in the directory:
  ctd-123456/0000/util/style
  See entry 377 in Appendix 4.
  
  DTDs 
  DTDs must be placed in the directory:
  ctd-123456/0000/util/dtd
  See entries 371–76 in Appendix 4.
  They must follow a naming convention.
  
  The DTD of the backbone is in Appendix 8.
  It must be placed in the above directory.
  
  Business process (protocol) 
  The business process to be supported can be described as follows:
  
    Industry <-----> Message <-----> Agency
  
  The lifecycle management is composed at least of:
   Initial submission: should be self-contained.
   Incremental updates: with its sequence number.
  
  See also
   Clinical trial
   Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium
   European Medicines Agency (EMA)
   Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
   Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan).
   Russian Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development (Russia).
  
  References
  
  External links
   eCTD Specification and Related Files (ICH)
   Electronic Common Technical Document (eCTD) (FDA)
   EU Module 1 (EMA)
  
  Clinical research
  Clinical data management
  Health informatics
  Health standards
  International standards
  International trade
  World government
  Food and Drug Administration
  Health Canada
  Intellectual property law
  Pharmaceutical industry
  Medical research
  Drug safety
  Experimental drugs
  Biotechnology products
  Regulators of biotechnology products
  Regulation in the European Union