Keynote Messages

In all of the PhUSE Conferences, there has been a Keynote presentation during the opening session.  As the society has matured, the Keynote presentation has become packaged as part of a wider conference theme.  Below, you will find a brief summary of the previous key note presentations.

From 2008, PhUSE decided to record the key note presentation (as well as the management stream).   You can view all these short excerpts below.

2005: Heidelberg, Germany
Allan Russell, SAS International
"SAS in Life Sciences"

This address reviewed how SAS's innovation has helped the life sciences business over the last 25 years.  Focusing on technology, Allan explained and demonstrated how there has been a move from 'tools' towards 'solutions' and how over the years, problems such as diverse and complex data sources as well as code maintenance and validation have now been addressed by centralised meta data control as well as standard, reusable routines.

2006: Dublin, Ireland
Dr. Mike Collins, Pfizer
"How the Changing Face of Pharma is Producing Opportunities and Threats for Programming"

A very thought provoking and sobering addressed highlighted the challenges we face and raised the importance of the need for greater standardisation, greater outsourcing and the need for programmers to change their game to the next level.  On standardisation, Mike highlighted that if there are too many standards then nothing would have been achieved.  When discussing outsourcing, the move to off shore partners was explained, especially the strong rationale to invest in Asia.  Finally, there was an insight into how the programming fraternity can exploit new technology and use their distinct skills set to become more involved with more higher value activities.

2007: Lisbon, Portugal
Dr. Armando Oliva, FDA
"The Use of Standardized Clinical Trial Data during the Clinical Review of a Pre-marketing Application"

The conference committee were delighted that this year's keynote address was given by Dr. Armando Oliva, M.D., Deputy Director for Bioinformatics in FDA's Office of Critical Path Programs.  Dr. Oliva addressed the development, implementation and adoption of data standards at the FDA, with particular emphasis on activities related to CDISC, HL-7 and the Janus Data Warehouse. 

2008: Manchester, England
Dr. Eliot Forster, Solace Pharmaceuticals
"The Changing Face of the Pharmaceutical Industry"

The presentation explained how financial, macro-economic, political and technological forces are changing the face of the pharmaceutical industry and driving the need for pharmaceutical companies to adapt.

Forces discussed were:

1. A shift away from the belief that bigger is better and Pharmaceutical companies are beginning to doubt that they will get “benefits of scale”.
2. A slump in shareholder return that must be addressed if the pharmaceutical industry is to be the heavily invested industry that is has historically been.
3. A historically short average patent life for Pharmaceutical products and this will soon create large financial pressures.
4. R&D output (as measured by number of drugs approved) is flat but R&D spending is up.
5. A decade of consolidation and consolidation has resulted in a shift in employment patterns.

During the presentation, Dr. Forster suggested that “in change, there is opportunity”  and discussed changes that he saw the industry making that were both positive and healthy.

The full presentation is available in the members' area of the website by clicking here.

2009: Basel, Switzerland
Dr. Diane Jorkasky, Aileron Therapeutics
"Quo Vadis?"

"At last year's opening speech, Dr. Foster did a great job in describing where the industry is going.  But I want to do something different this year and speak to you about where YOU can take the industry.  I believe the industry is in a mess, and if we don't start to change the way we do business quite substantially..."

This is how Dr. Jorkasky opened Conference 2009 with her Keynote speech in Basel.  The speech set the tone for the conference and influenced many other presentations across the three days that followed.

The full presentation is available in the members' area of the website by clicking here.