Welcome message

Dear Colleagues,

It is significant that in March 2021, we dare writing a letter of invitation to you to prepare for this year’s ISoP Annual Meeting. After more than one year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we now allow ourselves to look ahead with optimism because many effective vaccines against COVID-19 are now being deployed across the globe. Inevitably this campaign of unprecedented scale, hoping to reach most of the world population in a short period of time, leads to intense public debate about the safety of pharmaceutical products. Scientists, media, and the public are now discussing issues that are core to ISoP and the wider pharmacovigilance community.

We had planned to organize the ISoP Annual Meeting 2020 in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, in October last year, but had to postpone it to 2021 because of the pandemic. After extensive discussions, including with our local host, the Ministry of Health in Oman, we have now decided to offer a hybrid annual meeting from 8 -10 November 2021 in which the main scientific programme will be offered on-line, with additional local activities taking place on-site in Muscat. The nature and extent of the local activities will be described on this website by the end of June.

ISoP warmly invites members and others interested in attending to register either for the on-line conference, or to come to Muscat and follow the same programme on site, plus additional activities that will only be offered locally. An outline of the planned scientific programme is currently available here. Details of the local setup that will be offered will be posted on the conference website, as they become available. We expect international travel will be feasible by November 2021 and that a significant number of meeting participants will be able to travel to Oman for  face-to face interactions with international colleagues.

The theme of ISoP 2021 is ‘Integrated Pharmacovigilance for Safer Patients’: how can different activities and stakeholders in pharmacovigilance be brought together, creating more effective systems?

The opening sessions of the scientific programme will cover global post marketing safety surveillance of COVID-19 vaccines, with perspectives provided by representatives of the main stakeholders involved in the global immunization campaign, including WHO.

Our ISoP 2021 conference will offer new perspectives and opportunities to discuss how to avoid fragmentation of pharmacovigilance systems, ensuring effective use of available safety information, supporting continuous learning and improvement of the safe use of medicines for all.

On behalf of the ISoP Executive Committee and the Local Organizing Committee, it is our great pleasure to welcome you to the 20th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP 2021) either virtually or, if feasible, in Muscat!

Mira Harrison-Woolrych, President ISoP

Sten Olsson, Chair Scientific Committee

Mayada Alkhakany, Chair Local Organizing Committee

March 2021