Greetings from DIA

June 24, 2008 – 10:01 am

I’m doing something a little bit different today. R&D Directions Senior Editor Michael Christel is at the DIA annual meeting this week, and I thought getting some report of the meeting would be interesting. Mike sent in this report last night. He’ll have another dispatch for us later on today.

DIA in full swing

Greetings from Boston, Mass. While stormy skies off the harbor officially ushered in the 44th DIA Annual Meeting yesterday morning, the mood indoors was anything but gloomy. As Linda McGoldrick, executive director, DIA, in kicking off the plenary session, noted to attendees gathered in the Grand Ballroom of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, “This is a transformational time in our industry.”

Ms. McGoldrick mentioned that the global pharmaceutical market is forecasted to grow to $700 billion by 2011, making the job of DIA members and volunteers as “catalysts of information” even more critical. Attending for the four-day conference are drug industry leaders from 65 countries, as well as representatives from a dozen regulatory agencies around the world. There will be some 370 sessions completed by Thursday morning, and over in the exhibit hall, there are more than 540 companies manning 850 booths. In total, DIA leaders estimate, there are networking opportunities available with over 8,500 fellow professionals in the life sciences industry. That’s almost enough to fill half of TD Banknorth Garden, the site of the Celtics’ recent NBA title clincher just down the road. Boston, by the way, is still abuzz with championship fever. Even some of those exhibiting at DIA are getting into the act, adorning their booths with various Celtic Jerseys, framed pictures, and the like.

Whether Janet Woodcock is a Boston Celtics fan is not common knowledge at the moment, but FDA’s deputy commissioner and chief medical officer was on hand yesterday morning to accept DIA’s distinguished Career Award, one of several honors the group handed out. Dr. Woodcock praised DIA for its role in contributing to the worldwide understanding of the development and use of drugs.
“In the complex global world in which we live in now, education and training and information exchange are of vital importance,” Dr. Woodcock said. “The need for the work of the DIA is more essential than ever.”

Dr. Woodcock touched on the recent events surrounding the blood-thinner heparin as further proof of the need for the free flow of information in the risky world of drug development.

“You can’t take anything for granted when it comes to human health and safety of pharmaceuticals,” Dr. Woodcock said. “In this globalized world, we must increase our vigilance. A very important part of that requires training and information sharing and collectively developing new approaches.”

Morning keynote speaker Dennis Ausiello, Jackson professor of clinical medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, addressed a popular topic of debate in drug development circles these days - the relationship between academia and industry. Dr. Ausiello claims at no other time has the dynamic between the two segments been more under attack than it is today. He says the lack of collaboration is evident. Academia, Dr. Ausiello notes, is typically concerned with prescription drug marketing practices and commercialization demands asked of them even early on in the developing process.

“There is a myth out there that there is an innovation deficit,” Dr. Ausiello says. “There’s a productivity deficit. Scientists have new impediments.”

So what does the pharmaceutical industry need to do to help improve this relationship? Dr. Ausiello says more target prioritization would help, as well as minimizing attrition rates, the ability to be scientifically nimble, and the need to focus on the human organism as the experimental model.

Switching to the exhibitor front, meetings were held with Quintiles Consulting, a relatively new arm of CRO Quintiles Transnational, and representatives of the CRO Parexel and its technology subsidiary, Perceptive Informatics. Quintiles talked about the company’s recent acquisition of Eidetics, a decision-analytics and market research consulting firm, to help bolster the company’s Quintiles Consulting business.

Parexel, which may be facing a bidding war with Quintiles to acquire U.K.-based clinical technology company ClinPhone, addressed the company’s recent unveiling of its Clinical Logistical Services, which provides centralized coordination of clinical study supplies, lab services, and ancillary supplies. Mark Goldberg, president of clinical research services and Perceptive Informatics, Parexel, talked about how clinical supply problems are one of biggest triggers of clinical study delays.

With a chance to philosophize a bit, Parexel CEO Joseph von Rickenbach weighed in on the recent “Pharma 2020″ report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which predicts advances in computer-based technologies and the evolution of “virtual man” will help shorten R&D drug timelines by two-thirds, dramatically increase success rates, and cut down on clinical trial costs. (Editor: Ed Silverman of Pharmalot has an interview with Neal Patel, PriceWaterhouseCoopers director of the pharmaceutical R&D practice, about the report.)

“The fact is, in the end, we believe in technology and technology makes a big difference,” Dr. von Rickenbach said. “Having said that, I also can tell you, That this takes a long time, that a lot of promises have been long in coming and are exaggerated. The truth really is technology is now a big factor, but still not nearly as big as it can be and eventually will be.”

In other CRO news, Novotech, the largest Australian owned CRO, was named by Frost & Sullivan as the Australian CRO of the Year. The award is part of the Excellence in Healthcare Awards series covering a spectrum of healthcare practice areas in the Asia Pacific region.
- Michael Christel, senior editor, R&D Directions