As pharmaceutical companies face increasing pressure to produce more content across more channels, the Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (MLR) review process is under strain.
What was once a structured, linear workflow has evolved into a dynamic, cross-functional process involving medical, legal, regulatory and commercial stakeholders—often working across multiple brands, regions and timelines simultaneously.
Yet many MLR platforms have not kept pace with this shift.
Instead, organizations often find themselves working within rigid systems that require teams to adapt their processes to the technology, rather than the other way around.
This growing mismatch is driving a new priority across the industry: flexibility.
Rigid workflows are creating friction across MLR teams
Traditional promotional review platforms were built around predefined workflows—fixed stages, fixed roles and limited ability to adapt as organizational needs evolve.
In practice, this rigidity can create challenges such as:
- Delays caused by inflexible approval pathways
- Limited ability to adjust workflows by brand or therapeutic area
- Friction between cross-functional stakeholders
- Difficulty scaling processes as organizations grow
For emerging biotech companies and mid-sized pharmaceutical organizations in particular, these limitations can become increasingly difficult to manage.
As review processes evolve, many teams are realizing that flexibility is no longer a “nice to have”—it is essential to operational efficiency.
ERMA Evaluate was built for flexibility from the ground up
ERMA Evaluate was designed to reflect how MLR teams actually operate—not how legacy systems expect them to operate.
At its core, the platform enables fully configurable workflows that allow organizations to define their own review structures across medical, legal, regulatory and commercial functions.
With ERMA Evaluate, teams can:
- Customize review stages based on internal governance models
- Assign roles and responsibilities dynamically
- Adapt workflows across brands, regions or asset types
- Modify processes as regulatory expectations evolve
This flexibility allows ERMA Evaluate to support organizations at different stages of growth—from biotech startups establishing their first MLR processes to established pharmaceutical companies managing complex, multi-brand portfolios.
Rather than forcing standardization, ERMA Evaluate enables alignment with how teams already work.
Flexibility extends beyond workflows to the entire review experience
In many systems, workflow flexibility is limited to surface-level configuration.
ERMA Evaluate takes a broader approach—embedding flexibility across the entire review lifecycle.
This includes:
- Content review: Supporting a wide range of asset types, including documents, presentations and multimedia
- Collaboration: Enabling cross-functional teams to interact within a shared, centralized environment
- Traceability: Maintaining visibility into how content moves through the review process
- Regulatory readiness: Organizing approved materials in preparation for submission and audit
By extending flexibility beyond workflow configuration alone, ERMA Evaluate helps ensure that every part of the review process can adapt as organizational needs change.
AI supports flexibility by adapting to content—not predefined systems
A key enabler of this flexibility is ERMA Evaluate’s use of artificial intelligence.
Rather than relying on predefined structures that require ongoing maintenance, ERMA’s AI analyzes promotional materials directly—helping identify claims within content and supporting reference assignment within the workflow.
This approach allows the platform to adapt to each asset under review, rather than requiring teams to fit their content into a predefined framework.
For MLR teams, this means:
- Less time spent managing supporting systems
- More focus on evaluating content itself
- Greater alignment between workflow and real-world review behavior
In this way, ERMA’s AI reinforces flexibility rather than constraining it.
A more adaptable model for a changing regulatory environment
The regulatory landscape continues to evolve, with increasing scrutiny around promotional materials and greater complexity in how content is developed and distributed.
In this environment, organizations need systems that can adapt quickly without requiring extensive reconfiguration or process redesign.
ERMA Evaluate provides that adaptability.
By combining configurable workflows, AI-driven content analysis and integrated documentation management, ERMA Evaluate enables teams to respond to changing requirements without introducing additional operational burden.
Flexibility is defining the future of MLR technology
As life sciences companies modernize their promotional review processes, the shift is becoming clear.
The next generation of MLR platforms will not be defined solely by automation or AI—but by their ability to adapt to the organizations using them.
ERMA Evaluate represents this shift.
By prioritizing flexibility across workflows, content review and regulatory readiness—while reducing reliance on rigid systems—ERMA Evaluate is helping life sciences teams move toward a more efficient, scalable and resilient model for MLR review.
Start your trial of ERMA Evaluate:
www.ermasystems.com/trial