Pharma R&D Today

Life science community shares research to combat coronavirus

Posted on February 13th, 2020 by Xuanyan Xu

After weeks of rising concern about the rapid spread of the coronavirus in China’s Wuhan province, on January 31 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a global health emergency. But the story of the coronavirus outbreak is about more than a health scare – it is a terribly sad human tragedy. Already (as of this writing) over 40,000 people have been infected and over 1,000 have died since the outbreak began in December, and it is children and the elderly who have suffered most.

The evidence-based approach to traditional medicine: An interview with Dr. Iveta Petrova

Posted on February 12th, 2020 by Harpreet Shah

A fruitful collaboration between Elsevier and Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (BUCM) resulted in Embase adding a new Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) taxonomy to its thesaurus tool Emtree in January 2020. At the same time as the release, BUCM held an evidence-based medicine training and seminar in Beijing to help promote the concept of evidence-based medicine. Elsevier was a sponsor of the event, and was proud to have our own Dr. Iveta Petrova, Embase Lead Product Manager, there to introduce the TCM addition to Emtree.

FDA report shows 2019 was a strong year for innovation

Posted on February 10th, 2020 by Xuanyan Xu

On January 2, 2020, the FDA released the CDER annual report, stating that 2019 was “another strong year for innovation and advances.” The FDA cleared 48 new drugs for market, making it the second most productive year in the last decade (2018 approved 59 drugs). But given the fact that the total number of submissions have gone down, and that the American government was shut down for a lengthy period at the beginning of the year, the FDA delivered an impressive result in 2019.

Webinar: Using machine learning to identify adverse events from scientific literature

Posted on February 5th, 2020 by Umesh Nandal PhD

The “vigilance” aspect of the pharmacovigilance process can be very challenging. Always being on guard and knowing all of the places to look can be difficult. In a sea of information, it can even seem like a nearly impossible task to maintain awareness of all adverse events (AE). That is why there has been a lot of buzz around technologies that can help automate parts of the pharmacovigilance process.

Bridging information silos the FAIR way

Posted on February 3rd, 2020 by Ani Marrs

We are living in a unique time, when the combination of computational power, expertise in knowledge engineering, and the data generation rate are all aligned to enable the aggregating and analyzing of data from different sources and types in order to better understand life science systems. The incredibly data-rich workflows that result from this alignment can be used to get improved insights into diseases, in turn helping researchers to develop more efficient and effective treatments for those diseases.

Elsevier supports Amsterdam’s AI initiatives

Posted on January 29th, 2020 by Mark Siebert

Amsterdam, a vibrant and renowned cultural destination, has also been enlarging its reputation as an innovative scientific hub. A series of big new national initiatives, including the corporate Kickstart AI program and the academia-driven AI Technology for People initiative (which is making “AI for Health” one of its main priorities), have put the focus squarely on artificial intelligence.

About this Blog

The Elsevier Pharma R&D blog provides insight and opinion on topics related to pharmaceutical research and development, namely: big data, target identification, new drug discovery, drug safety monitoring, risk mitigation and regulatory compliance. We serve the community of chemists, scientists, drug safety specialists, educators and students interested in pharmaceutical R&D.

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Elsevier,  its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Reed Elsevier.