Gauging the Effectiveness of Medicines Safety Communications From Global Regulatory Agencies

Perry et al. review the concordance of medicines safety advisories among drug regulatory authorities in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US during a 10-year period. Across 680 individual safety issues, the authors report significant differences in the frequency with which individual regulatory authorities issued safety advisories for drugs approved in their respective jurisdictions, ranging from 29.6% (Australia) to 52.4% (UK). The frequency with which only 1 of the 4 regulatory authorities issued a safety advisory for an individual issue ranged from 11.1% (Australia) to 20.7% (UK).