PRESIDENT’S REPORT JANUARY 2020 PIPA’s busiest period has just passed with an extremely successful PIPA Conference. If you were part of the experience this year then I truly hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed organising it. This edition of PIPELINE includes a summary of some of our sessions at conference by individuals who attended them. We also have a write up from our winners of PIPA’s 2019 inaugural PV and MI professional awards. As always, for those speakers who have given approval for their presentations to be shared, they are now available to all attendees via the member login on the PIPA website. I want to take this opportunity to reflect on the variety of aspects relating to the attendance of a PIPA Conference, and the benefits it has for all of our PIPA members. First and foremost, it provides you with access to speakers who are industry-leading subject matter experts with a wealth of knowledge and experience. The topics covered this year were really ground-breaking, technical, hot-offthe-press updates that relate to medical information and pharmacovigilance both directly and indirectly.
networking opportunity has great value to it and we see this as a huge bonus to PIPA Conferences; we saw a lot of people catching up with old colleagues and of course it provides a great opportunity to make new acquaintances – put faces to names that we regularly see on LinkedIn, for instance.
It’s all about Brexit these days. No matter what your views are on the topic, it goes without saying that it is already having, and will continue to have, an incredible impact on the way we work and where we work. We thought that getting an insight from the MHRA and ABPI would be useful and important to all of our members, so our morning sessions on the first day were from Mick Foy from the MHRA and Steve Hoare from the ABPI. We came away from it at least with some reassurances that there were thoughts and processes in place that we will need to initially follow should the situation require it. And a great opportunity for our members to ask the key burning questions that we have all been thinking about.
And, finally, a huge thank you to the returning exhibitors who have established such a great relationship with PIPA over the years, as well as welcoming new exhibitors and sponsors to the PIPA family. Once again, the benefits go directly to our PIPA members who gained access to the variety of exhibitors and had the opportunity to discuss, view and take away information on the services they can offer which are always directly relevant to our members.
We all like to work hard and play hard too, so the dinner and social event on the evening of the first day went down a real treat!
The committee took a very short break from all things conference but are now back to the grind of planning and executing the 2020 PIPA conference. Whilst we are doing this, it would be great to hear any suggestions you may have for next year’s event – please contact us via conference@pipaonline.org with your ideas. We also recommend that you secure manager approval for attendance early to ensure you don’t miss out on next year’s conference and can take advantage of our early bird rates once booking opens!
Then there were more technical discussions, where our delegates had the opportunity to select parallel sessions that suited their interests and roles. The second day of conference had a similar set up to the first, with parallel sessions on counterfeit medications, vendor selection in PV, MI workshops and building subject matter experts in your teams. This year, the topics were of equally great quality as before, often making it tough to decide which session to dip in and out of!
Ejaz Butt
The conference also offers the added value of having the opportunity not only to have one to one discussions with speakers, but to also network with the vast number and range of delegates over a coffee break or lunch. We, in the committee, think providing delegates with this
PIPA President Director of Audit Management PrimeVigilance
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