An introduction to pharmacovigilance: what a cardiologist must know

Abstract

The science of pharmacovigilance (PV) is important to ensure safety of patients and healthy volunteers taking medicinal products. A number of stakeholders are involved who contribute to the success of this field of medicine. One such contributor is physicians and health-care professionals who work in different therapeutic areas such as cardiology. As the understanding of this science evolves, the role of cardiologist becomes even more vital. The process of developing drugs is getting more complex, time consuming, and costly. However, several efficiencies can be achieved around accelerated drug development, cost effectiveness, risk management, managing health authority expectations, and developing personalized medicines. This is possible by increased collaboration between cardiologists and pharmaceutical medicine professionals. Therefore, it is important for a cardiologist to understand the basics of the science of PV and contribute further bringing new safe medicines to patients.

Keywords

• Benefit-risk assessment
• cardiology
• drug development
• personalized medicine
• pharmacovigilance