FDA Seeks Data Mining Tool to Track Adverse Drug Reactions

Joseph Marks | NextGov | July 24, 2012

The Food and Drug Administration is in the market for a data mining tool that will gather information on adverse reactions to vaccines and other drugs, according to solicitation documents posted Monday.

The agency expects the new tool to collect better information about potential problems with drugs that FDA already has approved or that it may approve in the future, and that are being used in other nations, according to the request for information.

Federal agencies are increasingly relying on commercial data analysis tools to gather research information. In many cases, this includes tools to analyze so-called big data, a term for information that doesn’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet or some other schema. Advances during the past decade have enabled computers to analyze much larger data sets in more dynamic ways...