1 September 2015 - The European Medicines Agency (EMA) starts its full medical literature monitoring service on 1 September 2015.

A total of 400 active substance groups (300 chemical active substance groups and 100 herbal active substance groups) will now be monitored by EMA. The service will benefit over 4,000 companies. The list of active substance groups and a reference to the journals covered by EMA’s medical literature monitoring service are available on the monitoring of medical literature page. Companies are advised to consult the list to check whether their products are covered by the service.

The implementation of EMA’s full service follows a launch phase which began on 1 July 2015 and which included the 50 most common chemical active substance groups.

Medical literature is an important source of information on suspected adverse reactions to medicines. The European Union's (EU) pharmacovigilance legislation has given EMA responsibility for the monitoring of selected medical literature for a defined list of active substances used in medicines and for entering identified reports of suspected adverse reactions in EudraVigilanceExternal link icon, the EU adverse drug reaction collection and management system.

For more details, go to: http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/news_and_events/news/2015/08/news_detail_002389.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058004d5c1