Medicines Safety in the Globalized Context

This chapter narrates pharmacoepidemiology, medicines safety, pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reaction mechanisms globally. It also discusses why a pharmacovigilance system is important in the current global scenario and how it improves patient health. The chapter describes a summary of best practices related to medicines safety. There are examples of pharmacovigilance from America, Canada, New Zealand and other developed and developing countries. It also synthesizes key literature and, at the end of this chapter, there is a case study on Pakistan’s pharmacovigilance set-up. The chapter also includes suggestions for the future research agenda to improve medicines safety globally.