Eu2P, France

There have been growing needs of well-trained persons in pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology highlighted by industry, regulatory and academic bodies. Especially, there is a need of skilled persons, specifically trained in risk-benefit assessment, risk management plan elaboration, risk minimisation and risk communication as pharmacovigilance practices and post-licensing evaluation of medicines has evolved towards a more pro-active approach. This has led to the emergence of new job profiles such as project managers, pharmacoepidemiological coordinators, risk-benefit analysts and collaborators able to interfere with statisticians and clinicians. People within the pharmaceutical industry do not commonly take a master degree due to the involvement it requires for people having a full-time job and who already have a professional diploma (MD or Pharmacist). Nevertheless, as there is not any specific training or specialization required to do pharmacovigilance, there is a need to develop special short courses adapted to those professional specific needs such as spontaneous reporting, databases, regulatory reporting etc. Therefore, Eu2P has achieved this goal by providing flexible and modular distance learning approach allowing for on-the-job training, with various proficiency levels and leading to awards jointly acknowledged by the Eu2P universities. Based on its Master curriculum, the Eu2P short-course programme is a training designed for professionals who want to get an up-to-date, quick, and solid knowledge. This adaptive and tailored short courses curriculum has allowed to build 34 different professional profiles for big pharmaceutical companies. It is foreseen that the training of more than one hundred collaborators leads to positive changes within the organisational strategy of the pharmaceutical companies. The expected impact lies in terms of increased efficiency as regards quality, results and communication among the various company departments.