Artem Horilyk

Co-founder & Chief Product Officer at DrugCard; Associate Professor and PhD at Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University. Pharmacovigilance practitioner and the editorial voice behind this blog.

Artem Horilyk is a pharmacovigilance professional, PhD, and the Chief Product Officer at DrugCard — a platform that automates medical literature monitoring for pharmaceutical companies. He started his career as a pharmacist, moved into drug safety operations, and eventually into building the software that makes PV work more manageable. This blog reflects his perspective on drug safety: grounded in real operational experience, and written to be useful both to PV specialists and to anyone curious about how medicines stay safe after they leave the pharmacy shelf.

Expert Biography

About Artem Horilyk

Artem started his career as a pharmacist — working directly with patients at the counter, which turned out to be a better foundation for understanding drug safety than any textbook. He moved into pharmacovigilance operations, spending several years as a PV Specialist and Local Safety Officer at a pharmaceutical manufacturer and a CRO: running literature monitoring, submitting ICSRs and PSURs, preparing for audits, and learning what it actually takes to keep a PV system compliant under real pressure.

DrugCard started in 2020 as a joint idea between three co-founders: a pharmacovigilance practitioner, a computer systems validation expert, and a software developer. Each brought a different piece of the puzzle — the regulatory problem, the quality framework, and the technical build. DrugCards OÜ was formally incorporated in 2021, and Artem has led product development as CPO since the beginning. His work spans AI-assisted article classification, regulatory reporting workflows, and the ongoing challenge of translating complex GVP requirements into tools that real PV teams can actually use.

He holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Science and serves as Associate Professor at Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, where he teaches across several pharmacy disciplines. His research has been published in peer-reviewed and professional journals. He regularly speaks at PV training events and professional webinars, and attends major international conferences in the field.

The DrugCard blog brings together the knowledge accumulated across all of these roles: shaped by his team's expertise and the wider PV community, and reviewed to ensure every article reflects accurate, practice-informed drug safety knowledge.

Editorial Role

Author's Role in DrugCard Content

Artem sets the direction for the DrugCard blog — the topics, the angle, and the standard. The content draws on his team's collective expertise and is grounded in how pharmacovigilance actually works in practice, not just how it looks on paper. His involvement ensures the blog stays accurate, relevant, and useful — whether you work in drug safety every day or are simply trying to understand it better.

Skills & Knowledge

Areas of Expertise

Medical literature monitoring AI in pharmacovigilance Signal detection & management ICSR management & MedDRA EU GVP & ICH E2B compliance Regulatory intelligence PV quality systems & audits Pharmatech product management

Career Journey

Professional Background & Experience

Artem has worked across the full spectrum of pharmacovigilance — from hands-on PV operations at a Ukrainian MAH and CRO, to building the software that automates those same processes at DrugCards OÜ. As CPO, he has grown DrugCard into a platform used by pharmaceutical companies across Europe for automated literature monitoring and regulatory compliance. He has published research on MLM automation in peer-reviewed and professional journals. He also participates in Kyiv Drug Safety Day and the Secret Drug Safety Club — community initiatives run by the DrugCard team for PV professionals in Ukraine — and teaches pharmacy disciplines at university level.

Education & Certifications

Credentials

PhD in Pharmaceutical Science, Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University (2013). MS in Pharmacy, same institution (2008). Associate Professor, teaching across pharmacy disciplines at Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University. Certified MedDRA user (MSSO). Practical expertise in EU GVP, ICH E2B R3, and Ukrainian regulatory requirements. Regular attendee at international PV conferences including ISoP Annual Meetings and World Drug Safety Congress Europe. Speaker at pharmacovigilance training events and professional webinars.

Regulatory Expertise

Regulatory & Industry Focus

Artem's work sits at the intersection of pharmacovigilance practice and regulatory compliance across European markets. He has hands-on experience with the EU GVP framework — particularly in medical literature monitoring and signal management — as well as ICH E2B R3 and EudraVigilance. He follows regulatory developments across Europe closely, with a particular interest in how national markets are aligning with EU standards. A consistent focus throughout his work has been the practical application of AI and automation in PV workflows: not as a concept, but as something that has to work for real teams under real regulatory pressure.