Book excerpt: Drug Safety Data: How to Analyze, Summarize and Interpret to Determine Risk provides pharmaceutical scientists, researchers and technicians with an accessible, practical framework for the analysis, summary and interpretation of drug safety data. The only guide of its kind, Drug Safety Data: How to Analyze, Summarize and Interpret to Determine Risk is an invaluable reference for premarketing risk assessment. This unique resource enhances the ability of pharmaceutical professionalsùthose with and without clinical trainingùto determine the risk of a drug or biologic­ ahead of its release, thereby reducing unnecessary jeopardy to the patient. Authors Dr. Michael Klepper and Dr. Barton Cobert, who together bring decades of pharmaceutical research and drug safety expertise, discuss how quality planning, safety training and data standardization result in significant cost, time and resource savings. Through illustrative, step-by-step instruction, Drug Safety Data: How to Analyze, Summarize and Interpret to Determine Risk provides the definitive guide to drug safety data analysis and reporting. Key features include: Step-by-step instruction on how to analyze, summarize and interpret safety data for mandatory governmental safety reports Pragmatic tipsàand mistakes to avoid Simple explanations of what safety data are collected, and what the data mean Practical approaches to determining a drug effect and understanding its clinical significance Guidance for determining risk throughout the lifecycle of a drug, biologic or nutraceutical Examples of user-friendly data displays that enhance safety signal identification Ways to improve data quality and reduce the time, resources and costs involved in mandatory safety reporting Relevant material for the required training of drug safety/pharmacovigilance professionals SPECIAL FEATURE: Actual examples of an Integrated Analysis of Safety (IAS) -used in the preparation of the Integrated Summary of Safety (ISS) and the Summary of Clinical Safety (SCS) reports -, and the Periodic Safety Update Report (PSUR)