Dear Well-wishers,

With a great deal of exuberance, I write this June 2019 edition of Oviya MedSafe‘s newsletter by which I wish to characterize the unprecedented nature of the pride that I experienced while participating as an invited speaker representing India at the first-of-its-kind International Pharmacovigilance Day conference that was held at Barcelona, Spain on 12th and 13th June 2019.

The International Pharmacovigilance Day 2019 conference was organized by Life Science Academy (a business unit of Italy-based EasyB srl) with the apt theme ‘Pharmacovigilance within and without borders‘. It had learned speakers from several parts of the world deliberating upon contemporary topics in pharmacovigilance. Unlike the other conferences of the ‘Pharmacovigilance Day‘ series which usually focus on pharmacovigilance issues of interest to the particular country and/or region in question, the International Pharmacovigilance Day provided ample scope for the delegates to hear about the pharmacovigilance developments in many parts of the world, and not just the EU and the UK, in considerable detail.

While not only me as an individual but Oviya MedSafe as an organization too were already well-accustomed to discussing pharmacovigilance at many international conferences and training workshops in foreign locations, this was a little different assignment for us as our sole objective was to enlighten a non-Indian audience about all forms of Pharmacovigilance that exists in India. Thanks to the collaborative interactions I have had with the competent authorities for pharmacovigilance in India in my various honorary roles and with Oviya MedSafe’s track record of delivering a wide range of global (as well as Indian) regulatory pharmacovigilance business projects from India, I was able to put together a comprehensive picture of India in the context of pharmacovigilance so much so that everyone involved in the activity asked for my speech to be titled “Pharmacovigilance in India – A Success Story“, which was also approved by the Session Chair Ms Jabeen Ahmed who was of extraordinary support to me in fine-tuning the contents of my talk. The session also had Mr Farrukh Malik and Ms Renata Yoshida Shihomatsu who spoke about pharmacovigilance in Pakistan and Latin America respectively, apart from Ms Jabeen Ahmed who shared insights about the regulatory pharmacovigilance scenario in China.

At this juncture, I pause to ponder if I could stake exclusive claim for the applauses I received immediately after my speech, for the simple reason that most of the extensive relevant content I presented was the outcome of the hard work of many policy-makers in India, mainly the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India led by Dr G N Singh and Dr V Kalaiselvan, whose efforts went a long way in making the Ghaziabad-based Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), the National Coordination Centre (NCC) of PvPI, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmacovigilance in Public Health Programmes and Regulatory Services in 2017. Of course, putting things in perspective may have been my strength but I must take this opportunity to thank my Oviya MedSafe colleagues Vidhya and Gayathri for preparing a succinct slide deck which helped me complete the coverage of this vast topic within 20 minutes.

Before concluding, I wish to share another piece of good news: Oviya MedSafe is proud to be the host for the first ever face-to-face MedDRA training programme that will be conducted by MSSO in Chennai (India). The two-day classroom training programme will be held on 19th and 20th Sep 2019 at Ma Foi House in Anna Nagar, Chennai. For more details, please visit https://www.meddra.org/training/schedule/face-face-training-coding-meddra-27 and https://www.meddra.org/training/schedule/face-face-training-meddra-safety-data-analysis-and-smqs-24. Each MedDRA license-holding organization may nominate a maximum of 5 trainees for this free training programme. Hurry – only 20 seats have been opened up for this schedule at Chennai!

Looking forward to meeting you through our July 2019 newsletter soon,

With thanks & regards,
Dr J Vijay Venkatraman
MBBS, F. Diab., MBA, FPIPA (UK)

Managing Director & CEO,
Oviya MedSafe Pvt Ltd,
Coimbatore, India
Phone: +91-422-2444442

Director,
Oviya MedSafe UK Ltd,
London, UK
Phone: +44-8452-733839

Web: www.oviyamedsafe.com
Mail: info@oviyamedsafe.com
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