AURORA, Colo., Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Drug marketing techniques could be used to improve the way new drugs are monitored, a U.S. researcher suggests.
Dr. David Kao of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center argues that while U.S. drug regulatory bodies are under pressure to make new drugs available more quickly, there are concerns that the deadlines for approving drugs have shifted the focus away from safety.
Kao says that the systems for reporting adverse drug reactions must be improved and suggests using the very same effective drug marketing techniques to do this. For example, laws in the United States already compel TV advertising to instruct patients experiencing negative side effects to report their symptoms to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This could be expanded to include campaigns dedicated to drug safety monitoring, Kao suggests.
Kao concludes that the only drug monitoring system that will minimize unknown risks must involve all the key players in healthcare, including doctors, regulatory bodies, drug companies and patients.
The study is published in the British Medical Journal.
