School of Pharmacy Creates Center for Drug Safety

New center will focus on enhancing the safety of marketed medications

By Becky Ceraul
January 8, 2009

The University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, through its Department of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research (PHSR), is forming a Center for Drug Safety in an effort to improve public health by enhancing the safety of marketed medications.

Ilene Zuckerman, PharmD, PhD, chair of PHSR, has appointed Sheila Weiss Smith, PhD, a professor of pharmaceutical health services research, as director of the new center. Dr. Weiss Smith has a PhD in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is an internationally recognized expert on pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety. She has been a consultant to the FDA and is currently on sabbatical as a visiting scientist at the National Cancer Institute.

As a comprehensive School of Pharmacy, the University of Maryland has many faculty members working across the drug safety and risk management spectrum. The Center will build upon their expertise and provide a framework for improved collaborations within the School and with other entities on campus.

“This center will be devoted to improving patient health by maximizing the benefits and minimizing the harms of pharmaceuticals,” says Weiss Smith. “The core purpose of the center will be to guide and inspire research and scholarship in pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety.”

The center’s core areas of research include pharmacoepidemiology and risk management in children and the elderly as they relate to the treatment of chronic diseases, medication misuse, and policy and regulatory issues.

Through grants and private contracts, Center faculty will be developing and assessing new methods for population-based monitoring of drugs and biologicals and testing and disseminating new approaches to drug safety and risk management to inform policy and practice. They will also provide graduate and continuing professional education on drug safety and pharmacovigilance and expand the pool of experts in pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety research through the training of new investigators.

For additional information, please contact Dr. Weiss Smith a sweiss@rx.umaryland.edu or Dr. Zuckerman at izuckerm@rx.umaryland.edu.