Google and FDA are mulling a partnership under which the agency would be able to use Google search data to learn about drug side effects, MobiHealthNews is reporting.

The FDA is already trying to catch the adverse event data in a number of ways including MedWatch, the FDA’s voluntary reporting system; and the Sentinel Initiative, which gathers health insurers and electronic medical record data to get access to aggregated data sets. In addition, the agency also recently announced a partnership with PatientsLikeMe to include patient-generated data into that mix.

The deal with Google would allow FDA to look into another set of data, one that doesn’t come from specific subsets of the population. Search data can potentially indicate that people who search for a specific drug are more likely to also search for a side effect, which could provide previously unreported information to the FDA.

To make use of millions of different queries Google receives on a daily basis, the search giant has sent its scientist Evgeniy Gabrilovich to the meeting (with the FDA). Gabrilovich cowrote a paper on the subject two years ago in JMIR, though it was based on Yahoo’s search data rather than Google’s, so he should have an idea how to parse through millions of records to find the useful information.

Chances are this isn’t the last time we’ll be hearing, and writing, about this Google-FDA venture. In the meantime, the agency is also working with Boston Children’s hospital spin-off Epidemico to filter through tweets for adverse drug reactions.

[Image from NYT]