Updated on: 05 February 2024
Purpose and Context
EMA is pleased to announce the web-based Human Variations electronic application form (eAF) for Centrally Authorised Products (CAPs) has gone live on 4th November 2022, on the new Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Portal. This is a big, first, milestone in the ongoing journey to improve the eAF and related processes. EMA has been collaborating with the UNICOM consortium to develop the human variation form and other new web-forms.
Following the release, users of the Human Variations eAF should expect continual work on improvements in the form of regular releases. These will be a mix of bug fixes, scheduled improvements, improvements based on user acceptance testing (UAT) feedback or that may be identified by users after the release and new features, such as additional structured data fields.
This document lists and briefly describes the new features and fixed issues included in the release of the PLM Portal FHIR XML only. For the Release notes related to the eAF, please visit the guidance on the PLM Portal.
The most recent release appears first.
About this Document
This document lists and briefly describes the new features and fixed issues included in each release of the PLM Portal FHIR XML only.
For the Release notes related to the eAF, please visit the guidance on the PLM Portal.
The most recent release appears first.
The components mentioned in this document are:
Component | Short Description |
PLM Portal | This component relates to the website, the UI (user interface) |
Human Variations eAF | The business process where MAH’s create and edit their variation eAF (electronic application form) on the PLM Portal |
The PDF that is available for download after the completion of an application | |
FHIR XML | The FHIR xml file attached to exported PDF |
For additional information on the PLM portal:
- PLM Portal: PLM Portal
- If you encounter any issue that is not addressed by the above, visit the EMA Service Desk portal
- For more general information, visit: PLM Portal eAF
Version: 2.0.0 (Announcement date: 31/01/2024 – Release date: 30/04/2024)
Version Goal
We are eager to announce the upgrade of the eAF human variation FHIR XML version 2.0.0 that includes the latest official FHIR version “Release #5 (5.0.0): http://hl7.org/fhir". This replaces the current version FHIR Release #5: Draft Ballot (4.6.0): http://hl7.org/fhir/2021May/, which will remain online for approximately 3 months to give consuming systems time to adapt to the change.
Version Content
The upgrade of the eAF XML to the current official Release #5 of FHIR is the first part of EMAs strategy to synchronize different projects on a stable FHIR version that will provide the necessary stability in the network to implement the new data exchange format on a larger scale.
Together with the upgrade to Release #5, we have reviewed and improved the eAF mappings in FHIR in order to provide the most stable version yet for consuming systems to start importing the eAF.
What this is not
This release note will enable consuming systems to read the message and extract the necessary data. It is not a documentation to create the message itself. The necessary Guide to create an eAF FHIR message is being worked on and will be published at a later stage.
How to read the release documentation?
To provide consumers of the FHIR XML message the easiest possible way to upgrade to the eAF XML 2.0.0.0 containing the new FHIR #5 resources or to start your implementation with the latest version, we have prepared*:
- A change log: 2024 01 30 Changelog eAF Variation FHIR 4.6 to 5.0.xlsx This contains an extensive list of all changes done in the new eAF XML version with links to the data requirements, 4.6 Paths, 5.0 Paths and the reason for change
- A snapshot of the current eAF data requirements: 2024 01 30 AF Data Requirements.xlsx This contains all fields for variation and medicinal product being used now or in future versions of the PLM portal
- All resources in v4.6 and v5.0 as XML for an easy comparison usable for permissive testing: MedicinalProduct Domain Resources - 4.6 and 5.0, Variation Domain Resources - 4.6 and 5.0 A complete list of examples for every resource in both versions to easily compare the changes and understand how the new structure looks like
- As complete as possible examples of an invented variation message exported in 4.6 and 5.0 from the PLM portal: eAF human variation 4.6.0 - 1.2.0.8.xml, eAF human variation 5.0.0 - 2.0.0.0.xml An example was created of a complete bundle that was filled in with a focus on completeness rather than realistic data. This is to be used to understand how the different resources behave in the bundle.
*The documents can be found here.
Version: 1.2.0 (Release date 21/11/2023)
Version Goal: Implementation of FHIR XML
Date: 21/11/2023
Environment: production
Version content (testable functionalities/use cases)
Version content
Functionality/use case | Component | Description |
Implementation of the FHIR XML | FHIR XML | Commercially Confidential Data not related to the application content/variation removed from the FHIR XML |
Issues fixed in this version
ID | Description | Comments |
38300, 15895, 46485 | Identify minimum set of fields required to export and update FHIR generation to exclude information not needed | Removing Product data that has not been changed in the FHIR XML
|
Old paradigm(Task represented in orange and Scope represented in Yellow):
New Paradigm(Task represented in orange and Scope represented in Yellow):
Known Issues
ID | Component | Short description |
n/a | n/a | n/a |
Version: 1.1.2 (Release date 10/02/2023)
Version Goal: Implementation of FHIR XML
Date: 10/02/2023
Environment: production
Version content (testable functionalities/use cases)
Version content
Functionality/use case | Component | Short description |
Implementation of the FHIR XML | FHIR XML 1.1.2 |
Issues fixed in this version
ID | Description | Comments |
36110 | ASMF, DUNS Nr, Telephone and Email changes | Change ASMF, DUNS Nr, Telephone and Email mapping in FHIR according to the changes in the eAF |
24565 | Free text field changes | Limit width of free text fields |
30382/30383/30387 | Various refactoring | Ingredient/Ingredient Strength/Ingredient Documentation FHIR refactoring |
38537 | Device Definition | Attach every DeviceDefinition to a Medicinal Product |
38779 | ATC Source ID | Add the Source ID to the ATC while keeping the ATC name as well |
37124/38274 | Device variation | Minor fixes to the Device variation as new edge-cases were tested |
Known Issues
ID | Component | Short description |
38300 | FHIR XML | Commercially Confidential Data not related to the application content/variation present in the FHIR XML |
Version: 1.0.2 (Release date 16/11/2022)
Version Goal: Implementation of FHIR XML
Date: 16/11/2022
Environment: production
Version content (testable functionalities/use cases)
Version content
Functionality/use case | Component | Short description |
Implementation of the FHIR XML | FHIR XML 1.0.2 | This release note is for the BUGFIX version 1.0.2 release go-live 16/11/2022 |
Issues fixed in this version
ID | Description | Comments |
26295 – FHIR XML | The HTML Change Provenance (unstructured provenance) doesn't contain the HTML changes when the proposed value and the present value are the same | This issue resulted a missing present and proposed section in the FHIR XML and in the pdf export when same value was presented in both ‘present’ and ‘proposed’ fields e.g., if user had added ‘see details on separate annex’ in both fields, the present and proposed sections were not available in the XML and were hidden in the pdf. |
26247 – FHIR XML | Impossible to use the same image twice in the text areas in a form |
Known Issues
ID | Component | Short description |
Known limitation | FHIR XML | Commercially Confidential Data not related to the application content/variation present in the FHIR XML |
Version: 1.0.0 (Release date 04/11/2022)
Version Goal: Go-Live PLM Portal
Date: 04/11/2022
Environment: production
Version content (testable functionalities/use cases)
Version content
Functionality/use case | Component | Short description |
Implementation of the FHIR XML | FHIR XML 1.0.0 | This implementation is the first version of the FHIR XML export |
Known Issues
ID | Component | Short description |
Known limitation | FHIR XML | Commercially Confidential Data not related to the application content/variation present in the FHIR XML |