ISLAMABAD: Sanofi in collaboration with the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) conducted a one day workshop on “Pharmacovigilance: Monitoring Product Safety to Protect Patients”. WHO (World Health Organization) defines Pharmacovigilance as “The science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problem”.

The objective of the workshop was to share global practices on patient safety with an overview on Good Vigilance Practice (GVPs), Safety Reporting in Clinical Research, Periodic Benefit Risk Report and Signal Management. The workshop was conducted by Anton Klishin (Multi-Country Safety Head, Sanofi Global Pharmacovigilance) who is a subject matter expert and associated with the field of pharmacovigilance since 2012.

Chaired by Sheikh Akhter Hussain (CEO, DRAP), the event had in attendance Shaikh Faqeer Muhammad (Director Pharmacy Services, DRAP), Dr. Asim Jamal (Country Chair & GM, Sanofi Pakistan) along with other officials of DRAP and Sanofi Pakistan.

Sheikh Akhter Hussain was appreciative of the session and said “Pharmacovigilance (PV) is an important component of medicine safety system and DRAP is adamant at functioning of a central Pharmacovigilance center to coordinate with the provinces. In this regard, various steps have been taken to make the PV system in Pakistan more effective for adverse drug reaction reporting (ADRs), signal detection and data sharing with all stakeholder after due assessment of the reported drug safety cases”.—PR