The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) is an international, non-governmental, non-profit organization established jointly by WHO and UNESCO in 1949. In 2009 CIOMS was celebrating the 60^th anniversary of its creation.

Through its membership, CIOMS is representative of a substantial proportion of the biomedical scientific community. The membership of CIOMS in 2010 includes over 55 international, national and associate member organizations, representing many of the biomedical disciplines, national academies of sciences and medical research councils. The main objectives of CIOMS are:

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A new CIOMS Working Group (WG) has been established to address issues related to the information exchange between stakeholders on vaccine safety. The forming of a new WG is linked to the activities of the Global Vaccine Safety Blueprint of WHO and its implementation plan, the Global Safety Vaccine Initiative (GVSI). It is a global strategic plan that aims at assisting low and middle income countries (LMIC) in their work with vaccine safety surveillance.

The importance of close collaboration between stakeholders is well recognized in vaccine pharmacovigilance activities, and guidance has been developed, in industrialized countries, for jointly planning these activities.

Read more: NEW! CIOMS Working Group on Vaccine Safety

The 1985 International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals have been revised by an ad hoc committee appointed by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) and the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS).

The revised International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals reflect current best practices and standards of care in laboratory animal medicine and science and provide a touchstone or framework of responsibility and oversight to ensure the appropriate use of animals.  They also may serve as a benchmark for advancing international collaboration in biomedical sciences.

It is hoped that international organizations and governmental agencies will adopt these revised International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals and that they will encourage use by the scientific community worldwide.

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The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) is happy to announce the above joint publication between the World Health Organisation (WHO), CIOMS and one of its new members,the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR).

The report is an updated and extended version of a recent publication in Basic and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (BCPT)and includes new chapters of special relevance to global health. CIOMS is welcoming IUPHAR as member.

Read more: New publication: The Role of Clinical Pharmacology in Health Care, Teaching and Research

On Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 13:00 - 17:30 CIOMS had its 79th meeting of the Executive Committee (EC). The EC endorsed the general ambition to identify new issues of major relevance for the medical community where there is a need for review and global adoption of common principles and standards and to increase the interaction with member organizations and involvement of members of the EC in the activities of CIOMS, and to promote the work of CIOMS.

The Secretary-General presented a summary of the most important events and achievements over the year.

The programme for 2013 was also presented within the area of Drug Development and Use.

Read more: CIOMS Executive Commitee Meeting: 79th Session in Salle G, WHO Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland

At its 78th Executive Committee Meeting in November 2011 CIOMS decided to initiate a review procedure of its GLs on Ethics in Biomedical Research from 2002. The guideline is globally distributed and widely used.

The first meeting of the new CIOMS Working Group on research ethics was held 4-5 September 2012 in Geneva.

Read more: First meeting of the new CIOMS Working Group on research ethics in Geneva

CIOMS Working Group IX was created in April 2010 based on suggestions from a number of drug regulatory authorities and pharmaceutical companies. The overall objective of the efforts of this Working Group is to consolidate concepts of risk management tools and propose their application in order to harmonize views and globally protect public health, and to positively impact prescriber-patient interactions.

Read more: CIOMS Working Group IX on "Practical Considerations for Development and Application of a Toolkit...

Meta-analyses have been increasingly used in the scientific evaluation of efficacy and safety in benefit-risk assessments, as well as for pricing  and the reimbursement of biopharmaceutical products. Over the last few years, the outcome of meta-analyses has been both debated and used as  evidence within the regulatory process for human medicinal products, and their interpretation has ometimes contributed to different regulatory actions for the same product.

Read more: CIOMS Working Group X on "Considerations for applying good meta-analysis practices to clinical...

Historically, the project began in 2003 as a CIOMS initiative, in response to indications received from some drug regulatory authorities and pharmaceutical companies that they had concerns about the parallel development of special drug safety search programs based on the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA). This would cause an unavoidable duplication of effort and uncertainty within pharmaceutical companies about the utility of these searches on the part of drug regulatory authorities.

Read more: CIOMS Working Group on Standardised MedDRA Queries (SMQs)