Abstract
The 4th Asian Conference on Pharmacoepidemiology had taken place at National Cheng Kung University last October in Tainan, which was made possible through the joint efforts from the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE) and the Pharmaceutical Society of Taiwan. Nearly 400 peoples, including 90 persons from 15 overseas countries had attended this meeting themed with "Communication and Collaboration for Safety". It is expected that colleagues from various perspectives would have been inspired from the scientific program of the meeting and will promote the future development of pharmacoepidemiology. This article also described the mission and goal of ISPE and provided information on entering pharmacoepidemiology research.
Key words: ACPE, ISPE, pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacy research
Background
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Lin Tzu-Sun in Saint Mary's Hospital LouDong for his invitation on this issue. For many of the pharmacists in Taiwan, pharmacoepidemiology would be a brand new terminology, which may sound less familiar to pharmacoeconomics. To me, pharmacoepidemiology is an interesting and productive field to explore for understanding benefit and risk of drug use. Before introducing what and how about pharmacoepidemiology, I would like to share with you the wonderful event just held in Tainan during October 23-25, 2009.
ISPE Promoting Asian Meetings
At first, I would like to introduce to you the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE), which is aimed to promote public health through pharmacoepidemiology research and just pasts her 25 anniversaries. As stated in the website (http://www.pharmacoepi.org), ISPE provides a forum for the open exchange of scientific information and for the development of policy, education, and advocacy for the field of pharmacoepidemiology, including such areas as pharmacovigilance, drug utilization research, comparative effectiveness research, and therapeutic risk management. Being a non-profit international professional membership organization, ISPE members represent the various scientific disciplines involved in studying drugs. Members are employed by the pharmaceutical industry, academic institutions, government agencies, non-profit and for-profit private organizations. Members have degrees in a number of fields, including epidemiology, biostatistics, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, pharmacy, law, health economics, and journalism. With members in 53 countries and national chapters in Argentina, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands, ISPE truly provides an international forum for sharing knowledge and scientific approaches to foster the science of pharmacoepidemiology.
Over the years, the Annual International Conferences of ISPE were held in North America or Europe, which were the great events among ISPE members and professionals working in related fields. By the increasing diversity, complication, and globalization of drug developments, problems regarding to drug safety have drawn more and more attention worldwide. From 2006, the Global Development Committee (GDC) of ISPE has successfully sponsored 3 meetings in Asia, which were held in Shanghai (2006), Tokyo (2007), and Seoul (2008). Being the co-vice chair of the GDC, I had applied for hosting the 4th Asian Conference on Pharmacoepidemiology (ACPE) 2009 on behalf of the Taiwan Pharmaceutical Society and was supported by the Board meeting of ISPE. Owing to the Asian conference was co-hosted by ISPE, brilliant scholars from academic and experienced experts working in the field of pharmacoepidemiology were invited to attend the Asian conference this time.
Program of The 4th ACPE in Tainan
With the effort of GDC members and Board members of ISPE, the preparatory work was undertaken efficiently through teleconference. The theme of the 4th ACPE was set as "Communication and Collaboration for Safety" and formulated into educational sessions, keynote speeches, symposia, and abstracts contributions. In the educational sessions, the attendees were provided with introductory courses on pharmacoepidemiology, therapeutic risk management and using database in pharmacoepidemiologic research. Dr. David Henry, the President and CEO of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, Canada, gave the keynote speech entitled as "Improving drug safety and effectiveness through communication and collaboration", which was rather inspiring regarding to enable informed choice by patients based on accurate quantification and communication of benefit harm relationships via international collaborative effort. Then, the outstanding experts and scholars from industrial, governmental, academic and general practitioners shared their opinions in the symposium of "Communication on drug risk among stakeholders". Followed by the symposium of "Application of pharmacoepidemiology research for policy making", the experiences from Australia, Canada, China, Dutch, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, India and Taiwan were exchanged. The third symposium was framed as "Improving prescribing quality", practical mechanism and programs from Sweden, Canada and US were presented. Last but not the least, the "Quantitative assessment of benefit and risk" was addressed by Dr. Hubert Leufkens, who is a professor in Utrecht University, Netherlands, and Chair of Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board. In addition, the significant finding on the association of HLAB-1502 and severe cutaneous reactions from carbamazepine was presented by Dr. Wen-Hung Chung from Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, which is now a required warning label by FDA.
It really surprised the preparatory committee that a total of 175 abstracts were submitted for presentation. Due to the time limitation, 39 submissions were accepted for oral presentations. And, the quality of presented works had impressed those invited scholars who have been leaders in pharmacoepidemiology research. Overall, there were 377 participants that had reached a record high among ACPE and around 90 attendees were from overseas 15 countries. Most of participants are practicing pharmacists or physicians (177), followed by students (66), academic faculty members (47), industrial (30), governmental/regulatory experts (54), and other health-care professionals (33). I strongly believed that a significant momentum for development of pharmacoepidemiology has been built in our country and will play a key role in the near future for international collaboration on drug safety. When preparing the 4th ACPE, both the welcome reception and the Gala dinner were designed to be the memorable attractions additional to the scientific program. It was expected that all the participants would be impressed by the culture and history of Tainan, the oldest capital city in Taiwan. Tainan is famous for her tapas and desserts reflecting the richness in agriculture and fishery as well as the admirable culinary art. In the welcome reception, a buffet of all kinds of the Tainan tapas and desserts had gained much appreciation. As of the Gala dinner, the venue was arranged at the square in front of Wu-Der Hall in Zong-Yi elementary school, which used to be the practicing gym for Judo and Kendo during the Japanese governance. Meanwhile, the traditional Taiwan music and hand puppet was presented to the guests, which was the representativeness of Taiwanese culture. All the smiles, laughs, and camera flashing had brought me the messages that the participants would take home with wonderful memory about the meeting.
Acknowledgement
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to National Science Council, Department of Health, National Cheng Kung University, and Cheng's Foundation for Pharmacy Education. Without their financial support, this meeting would not be possible. In addition, Dr. Weng-Foung Huang and Dr. Kang Jaw-Jou had provided their unlimited support in all the administrative business, which was rather significant and helpful in preparing the meeting. The staff and students of the Institute of Clinical Pharmacy and Institute of Biopharmaceutical Science were truly outstanding both in general affairs and reception and should be acknowledged.
Brief about Pharmacoepidemiology
Lastly, let me spend a few words on what is pharmacoepidemiology: the science which applies epidemiologic approaches to studying the use, effectiveness, value and safety of pharmaceuticals. Being a pharmacist, it is believed that patients benefit and risk from drug use shall be the major concern. If you are interested to analyze and answer drug use related issue with scientific merit, attending graduate program is one way to approach. (Allow me to do a little commercial here. Please visit the website of Institute of Biopharmaceutical Science成功大學醫學院藥學生物科技研究所, http://www.ncku.edu.tw/~biopharm/). And, to attend ISPE sponsored meetings would be another way for self learning, given ISPE is firmly committed to providing an unbiased scientific forum to the views of all parties with interests in drug development, drug delivery, drug use, drug costs, and drug effects. If you missed the 4th ACPE, there will be annual meeting during August 19-22, 2010 in Brighton, UK. If UK is too far for you to travel, then mark your calendar on October 29-31, 2010 for the 5th ACPE in Tokyo, Japan.
摘要
本文主要報告去年十月於臺南國立成功大學舉辦的第四屆亞洲藥物流行病學研討會，這次研討會係由國際藥物流行病學學會與臺灣藥學會共同主辦。會議的主題為「藉由溝通與合作保障用藥安全」，與會人數將近四百人，九十位左右來自十五個不同國家。透過研討會的議程與研究成果的分享，來自不同領域的學者或專業人士應可對藥物流病學的方法與應用有所認識，並有助於未來的發展。此外，本文也介紹國際藥物流行病學學會之宗旨與目標，並提供參與此一研究領域入門之道。
作者
國立成功大學臨床藥學研究所教授 高雅慧
Group photo of the invited guests
Professor Yea-Huei Kao Yang, R. Ph.
Institute of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
Gala dinner at Wu-Der Hall
