Institute of Pharmacy - Research summary
Our department has specialized in the research related to the drug supply chain and pharmacy services, and usually carried out via co-operation with other departments from the Faculty of Pharmacy, Medical School, the Clinical Center, or other participants of the drug supply chain. Our aim is to identify, understand real life problems in these fields and formulate potential strategies and tools to minimize their impact on patients. We try to increase medication- and patient safety through the drug supply system and optimize medication therapy, latter expression originates from Lajos Botz Professor and is a good and expressive term for our department’s research focus. To reach our goals we work closely with other researchers and usually novel methods, or the combination of various methods are utilized, like analysis of various databases, application of network research and artificial intelligence, analysis of health data collected by direct patient interviews or health data included in the medical system, health records.
1) The investigation and analyzation of illegal internet drug market and counterfeit medicine: assessment of patient and medication safety risks of internet pharmacies, search for different intervention points (development of methods targeting the internet and the population)
Trending projects:
- Test purchase and comprehensive risk assessment methodologies for products sold on the internet.
- Evaluation of patient/medication safety issues of online medicinal products and adverse drug reactions related to the use of counterfeit medicines.
- Prevalence of legitimate and illegal actors in search engine results and conversational AI platforms.
- Online training for professionals and support of awareness-increasing campaigns/communication.
- Website analytics, link network analysis, and legitimacy verification
Available infrastructure & methods: assessment of search engine results, website analytics, online content and product label evaluation, product quality analysis, and cooperation with national and international authorities and law enforcement agencies
2) A complex methodology to assess the toxicological risk of counterfeit medicine, illegal health products and uncontrolled sale and consumption of dietary supplements
3) The screening and assessment of drug-drug and drug-supplement interactions and the evaluation of potential factors influencing the safety and efficacy of novel biological, or targeted therapies
4) The identification of reasons and risks behind drug shortages and the optimization of data collection strategies and other potential solutions
International cooperation:
- Department of Applied Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Care, Faculty of Pharmacy, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland
- Department of Pharmacy, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, Pakistan