Newswise — What does the future hold for government and private efforts to assure medication safety?
On Wednesday, March 21, 2007, from 4:30"6:30 p.m., four of the nation's most prominent experts on drug safety will consider key issues from different perspectives—government, industry, and academia—in an important health policy symposium titled "The Future of Drug Safety: Trials, Errors, and the Promise of Pharmaceuticals." The symposium will be held at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP).
"Ensuring drug safety is crucial to protecting the health of the American public," said Dr. Robert Field, chair of USP's Department of Health Policy and Public Health. "We have assembled a unique panel of national experts who will frame the debate over how best to ensure the safety of our medicines. The symposium will cover numerous issues from medication errors to Internet drugs that escape FDA oversight to patient failure to follow medication instructions to adverse drug effects missed in pre-market testing. We hope that Congress will be listening."
The panel will be moderated by Dr. Michael R. Cohen, president of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, a nationally recognized expert on medication safety, and recipient of a McArthur Foundation Genius Award. Joining Dr. Cohen in an open discussion to lay the foundation and agenda for the nation's next steps in addressing this crucial public health imperative are:
Dr. Mark Beers, who recently retired as editor-in-chief of The Merck Manuals and executive director of geriatrics and clinical literature at Merck & Co., Inc. He is currently an adjunct professor at USP.
Dr. Susan S. Ellenberg, professor and associate dean for Clinical Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She previously served as director of biostatistics and epidemiology programs in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA.
Dr. Gerald A. Faich who served with a number of state and federal public health agencies, including the FDA, before his current role as senior vice president for epidemiology and risk management at United BioSource Corporation.
The symposium in the AstraZeneca Auditorium of the McNeil Science and Technology Center (located at 43rd St. and Woodland Ave. on USP's campus) is sponsored by USP's Department of Health Policy and Public Health and The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP).
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia is a private, coeducational institution founded in 1821 as Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, the first college of pharmacy in North America. It is where the founders of six of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world launched their futures. Comprising four colleges across a broad range of majors, USP specializes in educating its 2,800 students for rewarding careers through its undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs in pharmacy, science, and the health sciences.
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