Pharmacovigilance and Drug Safety

Spontaneous reporting

This is the reporting by healthcare professionals (and in some countries, patients, relatives and others) “spontaneously” of their suspicion of an adverse reaction having occurred. The reporting might be directly to the company marketing the product, or it could be made to the regulatory authority. If there has been spontaneous reporting of a suspected ADR to a pharmaceutical company (including reporting to any employee, such as sales representatives or to contractors) there are legal obligations on the company to report serious reactions within a specified time frame to the regulatory authority (“expedited reporting). This takes place to the authorities in that country where the report was received and possibly to other regulatory authorities also. For non-serious reactions, reports usually have to be included in periodic safety update reports (see below).

In addition, the pharmaceutical company has to identify reports of adverse reactions published in the medical and scientific literature (by a process of weekly “literature screening”) and cases must be reported by the company in a similar way to the regulatory authorities.

The authorities in turn are required to report to each company anonymised information on the serious adverse reactions that they have received in relation to that company’s marketed products. There are also requirements for companies to report spontaneous cases of serious adverse reactions that they have received from certain regulatory authorities to their own authorities. There are mechanisms in place to identify and remove duplicate reports.

All these cases – ‘Individual Case Safety Reports’ (ICSRs) – are entered on the company’s safety database and on the regulatory authority’s safety database. They are examined individually and in the aggregate for a product in order to identify clusters of reports that could represent a signal of a previously unknown adverse reaction or drug interaction or some change in the character of a known adverse reaction. It may also be possible to recognise a new risk factor for a reaction to a product, such as a sub-group of patients at particular risk.

The main limitation of spontaneous reporting schemes is that there is under-reporting of adverse reactions, as in most countries the process for the initial reporter (i.e. the healthcare professional) is voluntary and unpaid. However, their main purpose is not the quantification of the frequency of adverse reactions, but the identification of signals.

In addition to the national regulatory agency databases of spontaneous reports and the company databases, there are two over-arching international databases. The EMEA maintains the EUDRAVIGILANCE safety database, including ICSRs received from all companies with products marketed in the European Economic Area, reports received by the national regulatory agencies in the EEA, and serious cases from clinical trials. This database is linked electronically to the national regulatory agency databases and exchanges data with them and with the company databases electronically.

In addition, the World Health Organization operates a global scheme involving national collaborating centres (most of the national regulatory agencies worldwide) and a coordinating centre in Sweden – the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC). The regulatory authorities send the UMC all serious adverse reaction reports that they have received. The UMC database (“Vigibase”) is the only database in the world that includes all the regulatory authority and company ADR reports. The UMC has a panel of independent experts who review the data for signals of new adverse reactions. Aggregate data from Vigibase are made available to pharmaceutical companies for purchase.

Organization of safety monitoring

After approval in the EU, the company holding the marketing authorisation is required by regulation to continue monitoring safety. It must enter reports of suspected ADRs on a validated safety database and review the data for signals of possible new adverse reactions or other concerns. Any change to the balance of benefits and risks must be reported to the regulatory authorities, in addition to the reporting of individual cases and periodic safety update reports.

For products with national marketing authorisation in the EU, the regulatory authority in the Member State where the product is marketed has responsibility for reviewing safety by examining the safety reports that it receives from the company and directly from health professionals working in that country. The national regulatory authority also reviews PSURs from companies. It enters the case reports it receives onto the Eudravigilance database, held by EMEA.

For mutual recognition and centrally authorised products, the responsibility for monitoring safety rests with the EU regulatory authority that acted as Rapporteur or Reference Member State. However, each national regulatory authority will still receive local reports of adverse reactions from companies and health professionals and must enter these onto the Eudravigilance database. The EMEA acts as a coordinating body for the safety activities for centrally authorised and mutual recognition products, but the safety reviews are performed by assessors in the Member State regulatory authorities.

The Committee on Medicinal Products for Human use (CHMP) – comprised of representatives of each of the EU regulatory authorities – is involved at intervals with review of the PSURs for centrally authorised products and with safety issues arising post-marketing. These are channelled through its Pharmacovigilance Working Party (PhVWP), which comprises pharmacovigilance representatives from each Member State.

Legislation provides mechanisms for referral of important safety issues potentially affecting public health throughout Europe to the CHMP by the PhVWP. There are complex procedures for examining the benefit-risk balance of products if there are major safety concerns, and for making recommendations to the European Commission for suspending or revoking marketing authorisation.

There are two main strands to the assessment of safety of marketed medicines: spontaneous reporting and post-authorisation studies. However, it should be pointed out that company-sponsored research may be continuing in countries  where the product is not yet marketed, in order to obtain marketing authorisation there. Safety information from those studies is required by regulation to be reported to the competent authorities where the drug is marketed. In the same way, studies may be set up looking at new indications for the marketed drug, or use in new populations, or with different dosage forms. All of these may generate data on adverse reactions that is relevant to the marketed product and which is legally required to be forwarded by the sponsor company to the competent regulatory authorities.