DEVELOPMENT AND UTILIZATION OF A DRUG INFORMATION-SYSTEM IN THE JAPANESE PHARMACEUTICAL-INDUSTRY

Pharmaceutical companies are responsible for providing updated, releva nt information on the efficacy, safety and quality of drugs to medical professionals and finally to patients. To fulfill this responsibility , we must always endeavour to collect and evaluate the relevant inform ation. We developed a drug information database system called Advanced Medical Online Network of Daiichi (AMOND) to manage various informati on generated during development of new products and after launch of th e products using the classification format for retrieval. This system has been used for 9 years for the purpose of supporting medical repres entatives who play a primary role in the drug information services in the pharmaceutical industry. This system is incorporated into an on-li ne network system, and can be directly accessed by more than 1200 peop le at 11 branch offices and more than 110 subbranches all over the cou ntry. We upgraded this system to AMOND-II to improve the function, inc luding retrieval and output abilities. As a result, utilization by use rs of this system increased six times. We report on the improved syste m, AMOND-II and our experience of the system.