The event was a part of the series of the “Pharmacovigilance Day” conferences organised globally by Life Science Academy, a business unit of Italy- based company EasyB srl
The Indian Pharmacovigilance Day 2019 conference was held at Hotel Kohinoor Continental in Mumbai on 26th July 2019, as a part of the series of the “Pharmacovigilance Day” conferences organised in several parts of the world since 2014 and in India since 2016, by Life Science Academy, a business unit of Italy- based conference-producing company EasyB srl. Dr J Vijay Venkatraman, Managing Director & CEO of Oviya MedSafe – a global Pharmacovigilance consulting & Drug Safety services-providing organisation based out of India and the UK, was nominated as the Chair consecutively for the 4th Indian Pharmacovigilance Day following the success of the three annual Indian Pharmacovigilance Day conferences held in Mumbai (in 2016 & 2018) and Hyderabad (in 2017) under his chairmanship. Like the previous years, the agenda of the conference was well-crafted to suit the contemporary professional interests of the pharmacovigilance stakeholders in India.
The conference started with a brief welcome address by Enrico Pedroni, Managing Director, EasyB srl, Italy, followed by Dr J Vijay Venkatraman’s address as the Chair to the delegates about the nature and purpose of the conference. The first session of the conference started to sail with the topic ‘Significance of Pharmacovigilance in Regulatory Decision-Making’ by the first keynote speaker Dr Darshan Bhatt who shared his experiential wisdom and his perspectives on the subject with the audience. This session was followed by the second keynote speaker Dr Sanish Davis, who spoke on ‘Metamorphosis of Clinical Trial Safety in India – Triumph of Collaboration’.
The next session was ‘Practical Pharmacovigilance in India’ which had two pharmacovigilance heads from the industry offering complimentary as well as contrasting viewpoints on a single topic, followed by a third speaker providing a cross-sectional analysis on another. Dr R K Sanghavi then spoke on ‘Bringing HCPs, MAHs and Regulatory Authorities together for Pharmacovigilance: Challenges in India & possible solutions’. The solutions proposed by Dr Sanghavi for the challenges he enlisted in his presentation resulted in a healthy debate on the practicality of and rationale behind the same.
The third session of the day titled ‘Global Pharmacovigilance Perspectives’ began with Dr Abhijit Surwade giving an overview on ‘Regulatory Requirements and Safety Assessment of Consumer Health Products’. He was followed by Dr Shraddha Bhange who presented on the topic ‘Roles of WHO, National Regulatory Agencies & Industry in ensuring Vaccine Safety across the globe’. Both these speeches generated numerous questions from the audience which were well-answered by the speakers, resulting in a participative experience for the audience on highly specialized sub-functions of pharmacovigilance. Durga Mane, the third speaker of the session, gave a lucid talk on a subject that is very much pertinent to the daily activities of global pharmacovigilance professionals, namely ‘Significance of Internal Audits in Outsourced Global Pharmacovigilance Operations’.
The last session of the day had the theme ‘Transforming for Tomorrow’. The session began with the topic, ‘Technology as an enabler of effective Safety Signal Surveillance’ by Dr Neelesh Joshi who justified the title with several examples. The final talk of the day titled ‘The Future of Pharmacovigilance: A Peek into the Crystal Ball’ was delivered by Aamir Shaikh. The day ended with closing comments and vote of thanks by Dr J Vijay Venkatraman. The conference was sponsored by Dialog Solutions and Oviya MedSafe.