The UK Medicines Control Agency (MCA) recently held a one-day symposium entitled ‘Pharmacovigilance into the new millennium’ [London, UK; October, 1999] as a celebration of the work of Dr Sue Wood, who was Director of the MCA's Post-Licensing Division until her premature death last year. Welcoming delegates to the meeting, Dr Keith Jones, Chief Executive of the MCA, referred to the‘outstanding contribution’that Dr Wood had made to the developing discipline of pharmacovigilance, and said that she had left the MCA with a legacy that it would be proud to carry forward into the new millennium. Speakers at the symposium focused on challenges and priorities for the way forward in pharmacovigilance.