Sources of evidence for assessing the safety, efficacy and effectiveness of medicines

The Academy of Medical Sciences published a working group report examining the sources of evidence for assessing the safety, efficacy and effectiveness of medicines. 

Status: Completed

The Academy's  report on the ‘Sources of evidence for assessing the safety, efficacy and effectiveness of medicines’ explores the strengths and limitations of different methods of assessing evidence and describes evolving approaches that are being, or have been, developed to address some of the major limitations of current methodologies.

The full report is available to download on the right hand side of this page.

This project is part of a wider workstream looking at enhancing the use of scientific evidence to judge the potential benefits and harms of medicines

 'Evaluating evidence in health' evidence-gathering workshop

As part of this sub-project, the Academy held an evidence-gathering workshop on ‘Evaluating evidence in health’ jointly with the Wellcome Trust on 21 October 2015. This one-day meeting brought together over 60 delegates from across the healthcare landscape to:

  • Examine the strengths and limitations of evidence from different sources for determining risks and benefits of medicinal products.
  • Explore how weaknesses in current approaches might be addressed, including discussion around evolving and novel trial designs, and methods of data collection, analysis and meta-analysis.
  • Consider the future sources of data and how they might be used as evidence.
  • Discuss how evidence can be effectively communicated to stakeholders, including patients, citizens, healthcare professionals and the media.
  • Generate practical suggestions for enabling the better use of research evidence in healthcare decisions.

A report of this workshop is available to download on the right hand side of this page. This report does not represent a formal Academy of Medical Sciences position on the evaluation of evidence in health, but instead serves to reflect the wide-ranging discussions that took place at the workshop.

 Financial contributions towards the project

Arthritis Research UK, the British Heart Foundation (through a Strategic Funding Award), the British Pharmacological Society, the British Society for Immunology, the Medical Research Council, the Naji Foundation and the National Institute of Health Research Health Technology Assessment Programme kindly provided financial contributions towards this work. Funding from a core grant from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to the Academy was also used to support this project. This was an independent project that had the support of the Chief Medical Officer. Funders did not approve the conclusions and recommendations and were not sent a draft of the report for approval.

For information on questions and queries that were asked at the beginning of this project, please click here.

Key contacts


Mentoring Masterclass - April 2024

Book Now

Clinical Academics in Training Annual Conference 2024

Book Now

Mentoring Masterclass - June 2024

Book Now
View more
 
 
 
 
 
 
FB Twitter Instagram Youtube