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Blog: Increasing Case Volumes Remain a Top Challenge for Pharmacovigilance Executives

On June 5th, 2019, ArisGlobal held a webinar focused on the “Key Use Cases of Automation in Pharmacovigilance.” During that event, 84% of attendees indicated a significant increase in their case volumes over the last five years. Only 15% considered their case volume increases to be ‘slight.’

The data point above reminds us that increasing ICSR case volumes remain a major challenge within the life sciences industry. A challenge, in fact, that we’ve been working closely with top life sciences customers like the FDA and Johnson & Johnson to solve. Nearly a year-and-a-half ago, we wrote a blog offering advice as to how to address this challenge: “The Push-Pull of Artificial Intelligence in Pharmacovigilance.”

How have your case volumes changed over the period of last 5 years?

OUR CASE VOLUMES HAVE DECREASED OVER THE LAST 5 YEARSOUR CASE VOLUMES HAVE REMAINED ROUGHLY THE SAME OVER THE LAST 5 YEARSOUR CASE VOLUMES HAVE INCREASED SLIGHTLY OVER THE LAST 5 YEARSOUR CASE VOLUMES HAVE INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY OVER THE LAST 5 YEARS

Fast forward to today, and it’s clear from the results of the webinar polling question that this issue is more prevalent than ever. Increasingly stringent regulatory requirements only add to the complexity of the challenge. As volumes grow, budgets for safety case processing are generally not trending upwards at the same pace. Many PV budgets are flat or drug safety teams are being asked to do more with less. The mandate from executive management is clear: find ways to improve productivity.

Given this reality, a PV department’s reasonable action plan can’t be to repeat the same processes and use the same tools but hope for better productivity and quality. Advanced next-gen technologies – cognitive automation that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and cloud computing that helps to drive down costs and improve scalability – are proving key to increasing throughput and preparing for the future.

In our next blog, to be published next week, we will discuss the status of strategic planning around automation that’s underway within life sciences organizations. We will also introduce use cases for automation in PV. If you can’t wait until then, view the on-demand webinar and download our white paper “Cognitive Computing in Pharmacovigilance: Revamping Drug Safety Using an Advanced Computing System.”

(This is Blog One in a Series of Three Blogs from the Key Use Cases of Automation in Pharmacovigilance Webinar.)

Editor’s Note: ArisGlobal would like to invite you to register to attend a complimentary lunch-and-learn workshop on July 18th in Cambridge, MA. “Building an Automation-Centric Approach to Drug Safety.” During the two-hour workshop, Edwin Raj, Senior Director and Head of Safety Operations, AMAG Pharmaceuticals will share how they have replaced their legacy Argus system and are moving away from repetitive manual tasks by automating patient data collection from any source, which reduces errors and increases cost savings. Space is limited, so register soon if you are available to attend.

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