Oviya MedSafe – The Origin of Pharmacovigilance Celebrations in India

Dear Well-wishers,

While we are in September 2019 observing the first ever World Patient Safety Day, I wish to dwell upon how we celebrated the Indian Pharmacovigilance Day this year, through this July 2019 edition of Oviya MedSafe‘s newsletter. Although I need to release one more edition (August 2019) in order to claim that I have cleared my backlog of the due monthly newsletters, I take refuge in the excuse that this delay has only made the July edition more relevant now than in the past!

Unlike the World Patient Safety Day, the Pharmacovigilance Day was not proclaimed by the WHO but instead conceived in 2014 by Life Science Academy (a business unit of Italy-based EasyB srl) as a series of country/region-specific pharmacovigilance conferences organized throughout Europe. During my first association with Life Science Academy as Chair of their first UK Pharmacovigilance Day at London in 2015, I made a proposal to them for the conference to be customized for and introduced in India. It was at that point of time that I identified the last Friday of July as a suitable day for conducting the first such conference in India. Little did I know then that the random date I chose would get entrenched in history as a Festive Friday meant for celebrating pharmacovigilance in India every year. That the awareness of this observance has gone up to an unprecedented level throughout the country was evidenced from the fact that I ended up playing pivotal roles in three distinct meetings held in three different cities on the occasion and respectfully denying a few more events due to my crowded calendar in July 2019, albeit being successful in my race against time to author an invited article. More than the joy of being the pioneer, the fact that my action indeed resulted in an annual season in which all relevant stakeholders enthusiastically promote pharmacovigilance awareness in India is what heartens the pharmacovigilance aficionado in me.

This year’s celebrations began for me with a guest lecture I delivered on the topic ‘An overview of Pharmacovigilance and its relevance to Life Science Professionals‘ on 03-July-2019, to Biotechnology students of KSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore. I must say that the students of this institution were unique in the sense that they were intensely inquisitive knowledge-seekers and I truly enjoyed answering their thoughtful questions. Please click here for some pictures of the vibrant Q & A session.

The next activity was the publishing of my invited article titled ‘Gap analysis of some key stakeholders of Indian pharmacovigilance‘ in the 16-31 July 2019 edition of Express Pharma, a leading pharma industry news magazine from India. As I mentioned before, I worked on this article only when I found time amidst the commitments of the celebratory month but I was delighted to receive positive feedback from the concerned stakeholders themselves. Please visit this link to read the article. As always, comments are welcome.

Thirdly, I honoured and was honoured by an invitation to speak on the topic ‘The Role of Pharmaceutical Industry in bringing about Translational Pharmacovigilance‘ at a Continuing Medical Education (CME) programme on pharmacovigilance and its clinical implications organized in Bengaluru by and at the city-based Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences & Research Centre (VIMS & RC) in collaboration with the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India (PvPI) on 19-July-2019. While I shared my perspectives on how the various regulatory-driven pharmacovigilance activities performed by the industry could result in tangible Patient Safety benefits, I also learnt a lot from the other speakers who were specialists in their own expertise areas. I have no hesitation in stating that I am yet to come across a clinician in any other institution who has a better understanding of pharmacovigilance than the medical practitioners I met at VIMS & RC. To view/download some pictures clicked at the gathering and the detailed agenda of the day, please go to this page.

Coming to the best at the last, namely, the fourth annual edition of the Indian Pharmacovigilance Day conference that I chaired at Mumbai on 26-July-2019! In the line of its predecessors, the Indian Pharmacovigilance Day 2019 conference too was quite successful. I thankfully acknowledge Mr Enrico Pedroni, Managing Director of EasyB srl, who took the time to welcome everyone to the event with this video address. In terms of choices for the contents and the speakers, I had consciously ensured a mix of “traditional & futuristic” and “seasoned & promising” respectively, which contributed to the high impact factor of the deliberations as I learnt from the delegates later. While I would love to narrate each session of the day in detail, I prefer to re-direct you to the vivid post-conference coverage given by Express Pharma, as I am sure they have not missed anything significant. Some pictures from the conference are available on my LinkedIn post. The full set of official photographs may be accessed from this Google Photos URL. Oviya MedSafe was one of the sponsors for the conference. At this juncture, I express my sincere thanks to all the speakers, delegates, sponsors, organizers and their representatives, among other contributors, for the unflinching support they extended to me in conducting yet another successful Indian Pharmacovigilance Day conference with the pharmacovigilance fraternity in India already keen to register for the 2020 edition.

Eagerly waiting to meet you soon through our August 2019 newsletter,

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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