(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is turningto a patient-networking website to get a better handle on the sideeffects of medications.

The FDA is tapping into a broad flow of data sent toPatientsLikeMe, an online site with 350,000 members that says it’sthe largest and most active patient network online. Members oftenreport their drug-use experiences, symptoms, and hospitalizationson the site.

The agency said it hopes to learn more about side effects thatmight look harmless to a government drug reviewer but aretroublesome to patients. Although the research is in theexploratory phase, it carries potential for influencing changes indrug labeling or how fast the agency might react to a safetyissue.

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“We’re hoping we can find information on the impact of adverseevents on patients’ day-to-day lives,” said Gerald Dal Pan,director of the Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology at the FDA.“We don’t know if it will give us the kind of information that willbe sufficient to make label changes. That’s what we’re trying tofind out.”

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Currently, the agency relies on patients, doctors and drugmakersto report limited details of side effects known as adverse events.PatientsLikeMe, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has collected morethan 110,000 adverse-event reports on 1,000 different medications,according to a statement on Monday.

“A traditional case report is a snapshot in time of when anadverse event happens,” Ben Heywood, chief executive officer ofPatientsLikeMe, said in an interview. The online forum detailspatients’ symptoms and medications before and after the event, hesaid, so that “the FDA could see additional signals or earlierdetection of an event.”

With more patients using online forums to seek out fellowsufferers for support or discuss their medications, drugmakers andeven hedge funds are listening in, trying to tease out a signalamong the reams of data.

PatientsLikeMe, a closely held company backed by investorsincluding EBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar, sells data, withoutpatient names, to institutions and drugmakers. It also collaborateswith companies on research, including a Biogen Inc. study that usedFitbit wristband health trackers onmultiple sclerosis patients. More FDA collaborations may be on thehorizon.

“There’s a lot of interesting app development for reportingadverse events,” the FDA’s Dal Pan said. “I think we’re going tohave to explore the value of social media.”

PatientsLikeMe takes identifying information out of the data itgives to its partners, including the FDA, said Heywood. The companyhasn’t discussed with the agency what would happen if theregulators wanted to follow up with an individual, he said.

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