DARWIN EU: Evolution in Europe’s Use of Big Data

The HMA-EMA Big Data Task Force has proposed ten priority actions to help the EU’s medicines regulatory network make best use of big data to support public health. “The first one we mention is the establishment of a Data Analytics Real-World Interrogation Network, also called DARWIN EU, which we see as a natural evolution of what regulators have been doing for decades now,” explains Nikolai Brun, Co-Chair, HMA-EMA Steering Group on Big Data, in this conversation with Thomas Kühler, Head of Regulatory Science & Policy, EU/AMESA, Sanofi, and Global Forum Regional Editor for Europe. “Technological advances have enabled us to query data remotely and preserving patient privacy and anonymity. We can query data remotely in European databases with an intelligent probe, and this probe can ask a question to the database and return with the answer. That is the vision behind DARWIN EU.”