By Zofia Marczewska on behalf of Teamit Institute team.
Gianmarco di Mauro and Fabio Riefolo represented Teamit Institute at the 21st International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP) Annual Meeting, dedicated this year to exploring new challenges and opportunities in pharmacovigilance after COVID-19.
The picturesque city of Verona in Italy hosted ISoP 22 Annual Meeting on the 20th-23rd of September. The event gathered international experts in the field of pharmacovigilance to discuss the new challenges and opportunities that surfaced in the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic.
Undoubtedly, the recent health emergency highlighted the importance of international pharmacovigilance and proper risk communication to health professionals and patients, medicine regulatory agencies, scientific organisations and universities, state authorities worldwide, and the pharmaceutical industry. In this context, Teamit Institute representatives, Gianmarco Di Mauro and Fabio Riefolo, contributed to the scientific debate with two posters respectively: “VAC4EU: a pan-European research network for collaborative post-authorization vaccine safety and benefit monitoring” and “Covid-Vaccine-Monitor: a Cohort Event Monitoring Safety Study of COVID-19 Vaccines in Thirteen European Countries”. Di Mauro and Riefolo have been directly involved in the safety monitoring of COVID-19 vaccines and were able to share their firsthand experience.
The Challenges Ahead According to Teamit’s Experts
The annual meeting also focused on the need for fast, efficient and creative pharmacovigilance to protect patient safety across the globe, moreover as accelerated pathway approval to innovative therapeutics is becoming more frequent.
As Gianmarco Di Mauro stated after the event, times are changing, and we need to change with them a Latin saying cited by Saad Shakir’s to close his lecture on the past present and future of pharmacovigilance at ISoP 2022 is the best way to summarise this year’s ISoP conference. Making treasure of the COVID-19 pandemic experience, pharmacovigilance will have to face new challenges and opportunities related to the use of new technologies as well as big data to generate real-world evidence of drug safety. Moreover, monitoring utilisation of new therapeutics and studying the environmental impact of drugs will also become an important part of the pharmacovigilance in the upcoming years”.
Di Mauro: pharmacovigilance will have to face new challenges and opportunities related to the use of new technologies as well as big data to generate real-world evidence of drug safety.
In Riefolo’s opinion “collaborative efforts from experts in different multidisciplinary areas (e.g., physicians, programmers, pharmacoepidemiologists, etc.) are crucial for moving forward and disclosing necessary, still unmet, knowledge”.
Here at TEAMIT, we took away many positive experiences from the 21st ISoP Annual Meeting and we look forward to sharing new insights with our networks and team in the upcoming months.
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Riefolo F, Raethke M, Luxi N, Ruijs L, Giovanazzi A, Schmitz J, Mentser D, Thurin N, Miroservic -Skvrce N, Liddiard M, Schmikili S, Klungel O, Trifirò G, Sturkenboom MCJM (2022). Covid-Vaccine-Monitor: a Cohort Event Monitoring Safety Study of COVID-19 Vaccines in Thirteen European Countries. Poster presentation – P092 Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-022-01219-7
Di Mauro G, Gini R, Mahey P, Molero E, Weibel D, Sturkenboom MCJM (2022). VAC4EU: a pan-European research network for collaborative post-authorization vaccine safety and benefit monitoring. Poster presentation – P245 Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-022-01219-7
