Oviya MedSafe as India’s Pharmacovigilance Ambassador to America
By admin Dear Well-wishers,
After a while, I am back to connect with you thanks to this September 2019 edition of Oviya MedSafe‘s newsletter which aims to narrate unforgettable anecdotes from the month and also reveal the rationale behind the title of this bulletin.
On 3rd September 2019, I participated as the Keynote Speaker in the one-day national level seminar “Current Scenario of Patient Safety Vigilance Activities in India” organized by KMCH College of Pharmacy based in Coimbatore, India. At the event, I addressed more than 300 young pharmacists on the topic “Pharmacovigilance in India – A 360 Degree View“. While I have been the prime dignitary in many a function over the past several years, the inaugural session of this seminar was the first occasion on which I got to share the dais with and also be privileged to be honoured by the Chairman of the KMCH Group of Institutions Dr Nalla G Palaniswami who has been my Role Model for a Medical Entrepreneur (of the highest order) since my medical college days. To view some pictures from the day, please click here.
In the later half of the month, Oviya MedSafe earned one more “first” to its credit by hosting the maiden face-to-face MedDRA training programme conducted by the MSSO at Chennai (one of India’s metropolitan cities).The classroom sessions for the topics ‘Coding with MedDRA‘ and ‘Safety Data Analysis and SMQs‘ were held on 19th and 20th September 2019 respectively at Ma Foi House, Anna Nagar. All the 30 seats opened up for this schedule were booked by various MedDRA license-holding organizations (including Oviya MedSafe), thereby making this educational initiative greatly successful. Oviya MedSafe wishes to sincerely thank the trainer Dr Anamika Dutta, MSSO team, Ma Foi Strategic Consultants Pvt Ltd (a shareholder of Oviya MedSafe) who provided the venue & administrative support staff for the training programme and last but not the least, the vibrant batch of trainees without whom we could not have achieved this milestone. As a conscientious fosterer of pharmacovigilance subject matter expertise for the forthcoming generations, Oviya MedSafe takes great pride in having been the pioneer in bringing MSSO to Chennai for this capacity-building activity.
Another special recognition bestowed on me during the month was an opportunity to take part in an audio interview titled “New Ethics and Consent Guidelines: Pillars for Safety in India” for the Drug Information Association (DIA). The interaction, which had Dr Alberto Grignolo (Editor-in-Chief of Global Forum, a DIA publication) as the interviewer and Dr Srikanth Krishnamurthy (a leading Pulmonologist & Clinical Researcher based in Coimbatore, India) as my co-interviewee, was published as a 27-minute podcast on DIA’s official podcast channel. While Dr Srikanth discussed the pre-market clinical research safety perspective, I contributed the perspective of post-market drug safety in India. Please listen to the podcast and kindly share your feedback with me. At this juncture, I wish to thank Dr Grignolo and the entire DIA Publications team for inviting me to join.
While on the topic of DIA, I believe it will be pertinent to make the announcement about which I hinted earlier: I have been invited to deliver a speech titled “Post-Approval Pharmacovigilance Obligations for the Industry in India: Current Scenario” at the Pharmacovigilance and Risk Management Strategies Conference that is to be organized by the DIA from 27th to 29th January 2020 at Washington, DC. Both as an individual and as the CEO of a pharmacovigilance-interested organization who attended the same conference in 2015 as a sponsor, I am heartened at Oviya MedSafe’s organizational growth as well as our sustained contribution to the betterment of the Indian pharmacovigilance milieu that have resulted in this moment of esteem within a five-year period.
On a related note, I have been thinking of using this visit to the USA for further strengthening Oviya MedSafe’s strategic collaborations in North America and I am more than keen to welcome meeting requests on these lines. Though my itinerary will focus on the East Coast, I would be happy to travel to other parts of the US if required. Please feel free to reach out to me directly for discussions in this regard.
Eager to meet you through our October 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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