GMP: Software validation

The basic guide "General Principles of Software Validation"; Final Guidance for Industry and FDA Start, issued on: January 11, 2002, states in

Chapter 2.4: Regulatory requirements for software validation:

Software validation is a requirement of the Quality System regulation, which was published in the Federal Register on October 7, 1996 and took effect on June 1, 1997. (See Title 21 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 820, and 61 Federal Register (FR) 52602, respectively.) Validation requirements apply to software used as components in medical devices, to software that is itself a medical device, and to software used in production of the device or in implementation of the device manufacturer's quality system.

Chapter 6.3. describes VALIDATION OF OFF-THE-SHELF SOFTWARE AND AUTOMATED EQUIPMENT as follows:

Most of the automated equipment and systems used by device manufacturers are supplied by third-party vendors and are purchased off-the-shelf (OTS). The device manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that the product development methodologies used by the OTS software developer are appropriate and sufficient for the device manufacturer’s intended use of that OTS software. For OTS software and equipment, the device manufacturer may or may not have access to the vendor’s software validation documentation. If the vendor can provide information about their system requirements, software requirements, validation process, and the results of their validation, the medical device manufacturer can use that information as a beginning point for their required validation documentation. The vendor’s life cycle documentation, such as testing protocols and results, source code, design specification, and requirements specification, can be useful in establishing that the software has been validated.