The Overview of Pharmacovigilance & Drug Safety course gives you a good understanding of the basic principles of pharmacovigilance – the course covers the history of pharmacovigilance & drug safety, key components within adverse event reporting in the clinical and post-marketing settings and an overview of signal detection & risk management.
Keeping products on the market without interruption becomes more essential with the reduced pipeline of drugs in development. Successful navigation of drug safety and pharmacovigilance are keys to product longevity, consumer confidence and regulatory compliance. This module will provide you with a strong foundation of knowledge on pharmacovigilance and drug safety.

1. Overview of Pharmacovigilance
- 1.1 Learning Objectives for this Module
- 1.2 What is pharmacovigilance?
2. Brief History of Pharmacovigilance
- 2.1 Thalidomide 1957-1961
- 2.2 Thalidomide’s Impact on Regulations
- 2.3 History of Pharmacovigilance - 1962-2000
- 2.4 History of Pharmacovigilance - 2000-2020
- 2.5 Mini exam
3. Clinical vs. Post-Marketing - Adverse Events
- 3.1 Pre-Marketed AEs
- 3.2 Limitations of Pre-approval Clinical Trials
- 3.3 Likelihood of Observing ADRs in Patients Usually Studied in Clinical Trials
- 3.4 Post-Marketed AEs
- 3.5 Pre- and Post- marketing: Basic Differences
- 3.6 The Importance of Adverse Event Reporting
- 3.7 Reasons for Adverse Event Collection & Reporting
- 3.8 Mini exam
4. Terms, Definitions and Examples for Adverse Event Reporting
- 4.1 Pharmacovigilance Definitions
- 4.2 Acronyms Used in this Training Session
- 4.3 ICH Definition of Adverse Event
- 4.4 Examples of Adverse Events
- 4.5 Examples of Adverse Events II
- 4.6 ICH Definition of Adverse Drug Reaction - CLINICAL
- 4.7 ICH Definition of Adverse Drug Reaction - POST MARKETING
- 4.8 Suspected Unexpected Serious Adverse Reaction
- 4.9 Sources of ADRs
- 4.10 Mini exam
5. Adverse Event Process Flow
- 5.1 Pharmacovigilance Process
- 5.2 Mini exam
6. Assessing Adverse Event Reports
- 6.1 Assessing Adverse Events
- 6.2 Regulatory Definition of a Serious Adverse Event
- 6.3 Seriousness: Life Threatening
- 6.4 Examples of Life Threatening Adverse Events
- 6.5 Seriousness: Disability
- 6.6 Seriousness: Medically Significant Events
- 6.7 Intensity
- 6.8 Intensity II
- 6.9 Serious vs. Severe Quiz
- 6.10 Difficulty Assessing Relationship of AEs with Drug
- 6.11 Causality
- 6.12 Causality II
- 6.13 Definitely Related
- 6.14 Probably Related
- 6.15 Possibly Related
- 6.16 Unlikely to be Related
- 6.17 Causality Quiz
- 6.18 Relationship Testing
- 6.19 Lack of Efficacy - ICH
- 6.20 Special Situations I
- 6.21 Special Situations II - Death
- 6.22 Special Situations III - Medical Error
- 6.23 Expectedness
- 6.24 Assessing Expectedness/Labeledness/Listedness
- 6.24 Labelled vs. Listed
- 6.26 Mini exam
7. Reporting Adverse Events: Types, Timelines, Receivers
- 7.1 General Types of Reports
- 7.2 Expedited Reporting – What to Report
- 7.3 Expedited Reporting – What to Report II
- 7.4 Expedited Reporting – What not to report
- 7.5 Reporting Timeframes for ICSRs
- 7.6 Reporting Timeframes for ICSRs continued.
- 7.7 Reporting to IRB/ECs
- 7.8 Investigator Notification
- 7.9 Minimum Criteria for Reporting
- 7.10 Minimum Data Set – Day “0”
- 7.11 Reporting Format
- 7.12 Reporting Format II
- 7.13 CIOMS Report
- 7.14 FDA 3500A Report (“MedWatch” report)
- 7.15 Key Data Elements for Inclusion in Expedited Reports
- 7.16 Aggregate Reports
- 7.17 PSUR Reporting
- 7.18 PSUR/PBRER
- 7.19 PSUR Periodicity, non-EU
- 7.20 PSUR Periodicity, EU
- 7.21 Managing Blinded Therapy Cases
- 7.22 Managing Blinded Therapy Cases II
- 7.23 Managing Blinded Therapy Cases III
- 7.24 Adverse Reaction Types
- 7.25 Mini exam