PHARMO’s annual report

Each year we develop our annual report to inform the healthcare providers that contribute to the PHARMO Database Network about the research and developments at the PHARMO Institute. The full report is available (in Dutch) here. The report describes recent developments, such as the addition of data onambulatory consultations andhigh budget impact medication to our database network and our initiative to establish the Dutch Academic PHarmacoepidemiology NEtwork (DAPHNE). In addition, we provide insight in our research and collaborations.

Statistics of the research department
Between 2010 and 2019, PHARMO has written 206 scientific reports, with a yearly average of 21 reports. In 2019 23 reports were written of which almost half were on cardiovascular diseases. Since 2010 we’ve published 209 manuscripts in international peer-reviewed journals on studies using data from the PHARMO Database Network. These manuscripts were either drafted by researchers of the PHARMO Institute or by academic researchers who had been granted access to the research database for specific projects. Last year our manuscripts mainly focused oncardiovascular diseases, followed by oncology and diabetes. Our studies mainly focused on drug utilisation. Almost half of the manuscripts reported on drug safety.

Collaborations
At PHARMO we perform studies ourselves to support the pharmaceutical industry with their research questions, but we also collaborate with academia. In these academic collaborations we support the academic researcher with the design of the study and provide data from the PHARMO Database Network. In the last two years 35% of our projects concerned collaborations with academic partners. Other clients include research institutes and Dutch and European authorities. A lot of our studies are initiated upon request by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The EMA requests market authorisation holders to study the effectiveness and safety of drugs in a real world setting or to monitor the impact of risk minimisation measures.

For these post-authorisation safety and efficacy studies (PASS/PAES) we collaborate with multiple expertise centres with access to data across Europe. In these multi-country studies, PHARMO can act as a coordinator or as one of the partners. In 2019 we have coordinated 11 European studies and partnered in 17 other studies.

We currently have established relationships with partners in the Nordics, UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. We are always looking to expand our network with local expertise centres that have access to data and extensive knowledge of their data and local healthcare system.

To increase transparency, we aim to register our multi-country studies in the EU PAS Register of the European Network of Centres for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacovigilance (ENCePP). An overview of previous and ongoing European projects can be found here.