ALERT project is now EU-ADR

The ALERT research project is now EU-ADR

In 2009, the European (EU) funded project investigating the early detection of adverse drug reactions changed its name to EU-ADR. The study, its full title “Exploring and Understanding Adverse Drug Reactions by Integrative Mining of Clinical Records and Biomedical Knowledge”, is a collaborative effort of 18 institutions from 10 EU countries to develop an innovative computerized system to detect adverse drug reactions (ADRs), supplementing spontaneous reporting systems.

ADRs are unexpected side-effects of prescribed drugs in patients which can potentially be life-threatening. Following thorough testing procedures of new drugs before market launch, prescribing clinicians are responsible for recognizing and reporting of suspected side effects through a ´spontaneous reporting system´. However, the variables in this procedure can result in ADRs to be detected too late.

EU-ADR partners are developing an innovative computerised system linking the occurrence of specific diseases (potential ADRs) during drug use with causality criteria, such as biological plausibility and known reactions, to develop and implement an early warning system.

Due to the nature of the work, an initial proposal for the appropriate named ´Alert´ programme was developed. However, as this name is trademarked by an unrelated company in life sciences, ´EU-ADR´ was adopted to reflect its EU status. The arrows in the new logo represent both the interactive nature of the project collaboration and the dual effect that ADRs have on the human body.