Answers
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Who signs off website content in pharma?

Typically medical, legal and regulatory reviewers as part of an MLR process, though the exact sign-off chain varies by company and content type — the practical question worth answering explicitly is which content types need full MLR review versus lighter-touch approval, since treating everything identically wastes review capacity.

In detail

Why the sign-off chain should vary by content type

The default assumption

Medical, legal and regulatory functions typically review promotional and clinical content before publication — see what is MLR review for how that process works.

Why not everything needs the same review

A corporate news update and a claim about a product’s mechanism of action carry very different risk, and routing both through identical full MLR review wastes reviewer capacity on low-risk content while creating a bottleneck for genuinely important review.

What a working governance model does

Defines explicitly what content requires full sign-off versus lighter review, matched to actual risk — see website governance for how that gets structured.

Related questions

Who owns the website overall, not only content sign-off?

That’s a broader and distinct question from sign-off — overall site ownership covers strategic and operational responsibility, not only review of individual content. See who owns the website in a pharma company for that wider question, since a company can have clear content sign-off without having resolved overall ownership, and the two gaps require different fixes.

Can this be built into the CMS itself?

Yes, review status and requirements can be reflected directly in the publishing workflow, so content can’t go live until the required sign-offs are recorded. See MLR workflow integration for how that gets connected in practice, turning what’s otherwise a manual, easy-to-skip step into an enforced part of publishing.

Does urgent content like a recall notice skip this?

No, urgent content still needs sign-off, but the process for it should be faster, not skipped — recalls and safety notices typically follow an expedited review path with a smaller, pre-agreed group of reviewers rather than the standard MLR queue. See how to handle a product recall online for that specific, time-sensitive process.

What happens when reviewers disagree on a piece of content?

Disagreement between medical, legal, and regulatory reviewers is common and usually resolved through an established escalation path, often to a senior reviewer or committee with final authority, rather than left to whoever raised the objection last. Having that escalation path defined in advance, before a disagreement occurs, keeps the review process moving instead of stalling indefinitely.

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