Pharmacovigilance is by its nature a detail-driven undertaking, and within it monitoring medical literature for safety signals is notoriously labour-intensive. Nowhere more so than at a local level, where barriers including language, format, subscriptions and paywalls can hamper access to what may be modest yet critical findings. Intelligent automation potentially easing this essential work comes as a huge relief, as volumes of content – and costs – continue to multiply, says Biologit’s Nicole Baker. 

The monitoring and prevention of adverse drug events, the essence of pharmacovigilance, or PV, is vital to patient safety across a medication’s lifecycle. Whatever pains have been taken to mitigate risk during product development and clinical trials, adverse events from medications are relatively common. The earlier drug companies can detect problems, the sooner they can take appropriate action to maintain and heighten patient safety. 

Medical literature monitoring – the systematic review of published reports of adverse events in published materials – is a core activity within PV. At a worldwide level, the practice is relatively straightforward, involving systematic scanning of highprofile, indexed journals via large databases.